Silly Season 2020/2021 (starting with silliness in 2019)

[selvam_e2002]

Vettel -- Past
He got luck as he was in winning care 2010 to 2013.

The driver should adopt to the Machine. He is failing that part and paying for it now.

In future no one remember him as 4WDC. He will be an example of overrated driver.

He is beaten by Ric in same care in RB 2014 and Kicked out
He is beaten by Lec in same care in Ferrari and Kicked out

If he Join RP, may be Stroll can beat him who knows???? There is no point in staying in F1 for him.

[raymondu999]

It finished within a tenth of Verstappens RedBull so it is able to be quick, though it must be said, quick on a knife edge.

I don’t think that’s an accurate picture either. Leclerc’s onboards were not that edgy either. But it does seem that given Ferrari’s setup gamble in Silverstone, the car is unable to cater to the driving style needs of both Seb and Charles at the same time.

[Just_a_fan]

the car is unable to cater to the driving style needs of both Seb and Charles at the same time.

One should also remember that he had a number of issues in FP and was very unhappy with something in the pedal box. If there's something on his mind about the pedals, that will take away performance.

Or maybe Seb has "given up". He's still driving properly but he'll have subconsciously backed off. Bear in mind that we're talking fractions of a second here. We, and the teams, talk about a tenth here or there, that a driver that is 3/10th up on his team mate has made him look slow etc. But the reality is that the difference between Seb and Charles in Q3 was just 1%. That's the difference between "being there" and "not being there" in his head. If he's not in the right place mentally then he's never going to be able to handle a car that's not exactly where he wants it. Sharpness of mental focus is key and if there's any loss of focus then there's loss of performance with it.

Watch Seb in interviews around the race and he looks like a man that's had enough of it all.

[Big Tea]

Vettel -- Past
He got luck as he was in winning care 2010 to 2013.

The driver should adopt to the Machine. He is failing that part and paying for it now.

In future no one remember him as 4WDC. He will be an example of overrated driver.

He is beaten by Ric in same care in RB 2014 and Kicked out
He is beaten by Lec in same care in Ferrari and Kicked out

If he Join RP, may be Stroll can beat him who knows???? There is no point in staying in F1 for him.

Just the opposite. In the future everyone (with an interest) will remember him as 4 times world champion. It's what the books say and what will be in all the youtube clips. Hardly anyone will remember his bad years, these will be down as the Hamilton period.

[Manoah2u]

Perez is not as fast as Vettel, but he would score more points because Vettel is crash and mistake prone. RP would be foolish to take Vettel.

Vettel has looked ordinary ever since the Blown diffusers got banned - I dont know why any team would want him now, he's past his used by date.

He's literally the only one who was able threaten Hamilton outside of his teammates despite Mercedes' dominance.
He even manages to beat Bottas in the mighty Mercedes.

Vettel's only real bad season was 2019, and now he's supposedly the worst thing to happen to F1

[raymondu999]

the car is unable to cater to the driving style needs of both Seb and Charles at the same time.

One should also remember that he had a number of issues in FP and was very unhappy with something in the pedal box. If there's something on his mind about the pedals, that will take away performance.

Or maybe Seb has "given up". He's still driving properly but he'll have subconsciously backed off. Bear in mind that we're talking fractions of a second here. We, and the teams, talk about a tenth here or there, that a driver that is 3/10th up on his team mate has made him look slow etc. But the reality is that the difference between Seb and Charles in Q3 was just 1%. That's the difference between "being there" and "not being there" in his head. If he's not in the right place mentally then he's never going to be able to handle a car that's not exactly where he wants it. Sharpness of mental focus is key and if there's any loss of focus then there's loss of performance with it.

Watch Seb in interviews around the race and he looks like a man that's had enough of it all.

Somewhat true I guess. He may have given up on this year anyway given how the team has treated him and how the car is

[Phil]

Watch Seb in interviews around the race and he looks like a man that's had enough of it all.

While this may true, i’m not sure i’d draw the same conclusion as you.

Seb has all the right reasons to try and beat his team mate:

1.)
He may be fighting to stay in F1 and for this he needs to be attractive enough for other teams (RB, Aston/RP etc)

2.)
He wants to protect his image and legacy of a 4 time WDC

3.)
To prove to himself and to Ferrari that they made a mistake of letting him go and choose Leclerc over him

Much can be said about his motivation etc, but in the end, i just think the car is hard to drive and Leclerc is better at that. It’s that simple. It’s no different than Button/Hamilton. Give both a strong car and both will perform, give a difficult car and only those that can drive around issues will prevail.

I think this has always been a trait of Seb, but it was masked well in his years at RB and later at Ferrari against a team mate (Kimi) with equal requirements.

The fact that he lost much of free practice just adds to the problem of having a setup that suited him.

Once they sort out the car to his liking (if they can), he will be better and IMO not far behind Leclerc.

[JordanMugen]

Vettel has looked ordinary ever since the Blown diffusers got banned - I dont know why any team would want him now, he's past his used by date.

Oh dear, that's some indictment.

So even for a position as Mr. Verstappen's backup driver and wingman, Mr. Vettel wouldn't be up to it?

Once they sort out the car to his liking (if they can)

It's the number two driver's job to drive a car with the same setup as the number one driver. That's how being a number two driver works (the job is, sort of, to perform extra R+D for the number one driver)!

On that basis, perhaps Albon has a better understanding of the second driver position than Vettel, and that might be why Red Bull may prefer to retain Albon??

[Phil]

It's the number two driver's job to drive a car with the same setup as the number one driver. That's how being a number two driver works (the job is, sort of, to perform extra R+D for the number one driver)!

On that basis, perhaps Albon has a better understanding of the second driver position than Vettel, and that might be why Red Bull may prefer to retain Albon??

I very much doubt Seb has anything in his contract that stipulates "no 2 status". The engineers will develop the car to make it as fast as possible and then, by feedback of the drivers, make it drive-able and iron out its flaws. Ultimately, I doubt Seb will want something much different than what Leclerc wants from the car. Everything else can be done by setup - but for that, free practice is crucial.

[raymondu999]

He may be fighting to stay in F1 and for this he needs to be attractive enough for other teams (RB, Aston/RP etc)

Unless, of course, he’s actually already signed.

i just think the car is hard to drive and Leclerc is better at that. It’s that simple. It’s no different than Button/Hamilton. Give both a strong car and both will perform, give a difficult car and only those that can drive around issues will prevail.

Or more suited to Leclerc’s driving style. Leclerc’s onboards don’t have the same level of unease that Seb’s seem to have which logically — to me, anyways — deduces that Seb is “unlocking” some behaviors Leclerc is not. Perhaps Seb carries more speed. Perhaps he brakes differently, or harder. Things like this we will never know

[PlatinumZealot]

2019 showed Vettel and leclerc both are fast on same setup when things are good, but once the balance degrades Charles is more able to hang on to the stallion so to speak

[raymondu999]

2019 showed Vettel and leclerc both are fast on same setup when things are good, but once the balance degrades Charles is more able to hang on to the stallion so to speak

I still disagree. I do not doubt that Charles has had the better of Seb through their time as teammates thus far - but I am not sure that Charles is better able to handle a malhandling car. Seb is no good at handling oversteer and Newey’s recent interview With Motorsport magazine said as much. When it’s more of an understeer/stable mishandling situation though, I do think Seb handles better. What proof? None, because I don’t think we’ve quite seen it yet. The 2019/2020 ferraris seem to have a pointy balance when the car falls out of the window.

[Big Tea]

He may be fighting to stay in F1 and for this he needs to be attractive enough for other teams (RB, Aston/RP etc)

Unless, of course, he’s actually already signed.

i just think the car is hard to drive and Leclerc is better at that. It’s that simple. It’s no different than Button/Hamilton. Give both a strong car and both will perform, give a difficult car and only those that can drive around issues will prevail.

Or more suited to Leclerc’s driving style. Leclerc’s onboards don’t have the same level of unease that Seb’s seem to have which logically — to me, anyways — deduces that Seb is “unlocking” some behaviors Leclerc is not. Perhaps Seb carries more speed. Perhaps he brakes differently, or harder. Things like this we will never know

And points Ferrari do NOT score could be points his new team DO score to have a £$ in the bank for next year you mean?

[raymondu999]

Lol no no. I mean like... “screw it. Who cares about getting points for ferrari for the rest of the year. I got a drive for next year anyways”

[PlatinumZealot]

2019 showed Vettel and leclerc both are fast on same setup when things are good, but once the balance degrades Charles is more able to hang on to the stallion so to speak

I still disagree. I do not doubt that Charles has had the better of Seb through their time as teammates thus far - but I am not sure that Charles is better able to handle a malhandling car. Seb is no good at handling oversteer and Newey’s recent interview With Motorsport magazine said as much. When it’s more of an understeer/stable mishandling situation though, I do think Seb handles better. What proof? None, because I don’t think we’ve quite seen it yet. The 2019/2020 ferraris seem to have a pointy balance when the car falls out of the window.

Seb himself complained of Balance issues a number of times when Charles was happy. Whether it is for oversteer or understeer it was not really said, but the bad balance seems to bother Sebastian more.

British GP 2020

“It’s very challenging in a Formula 1 car without wind already because Maggots and Beckets now, it’s crazy how quick that is,” he added.

“Now with the wind, it completely changes the balance of the car so you need to adapt to it quickly because it really affects the balance.”

While Leclerc is pleased with his Saturday, his team-mate Sebastian Vettel won’t be. The German had to use soft tyres to get into Q3, meaning he’ll have to start on them tomorrow.

To make matters worse, he hugely struggled for pace in the final session and could only manage to take P10. On the bright side, he does at least start ahead of a Red Bull, Alex Albon, and a Racing Point, Nico Hulkenberg.

“The balance was extremely hard to drive. Very, very difficult not to do a mistake, so we definitely need to do something on that because otherwise doing that many laps like that during the race with this balance will be a huge challenge.

“But again, we can still change quite a lot of things, so we will try to understand what we can change to maybe sacrifice more of the quali pace to be better in the race.”

As Charles says here it is the balance of the car that is tuned to drivers preferences. In this way Sebastian is similar to "no balance" Jenson Button. They need the balance to be in a particular window to drive at full potential.

http://scuderiafans.com/charles-leclerc ... -2020-car/