autogyro wrote:Up until a couple of races ago, I (and i believe many others) thought of Webber as a good but not great driver.
That's a bit of an oxymoron really. You don't improve in a couple of races, and I've watched enough of him racing in F3000 and elsewhere to know that these incidents follow him around even though he is on occasion very fast. He's hardly one of the best on the grid - that's the problem for Vettel and Red Bull.
However, given what we know about the incident it is not his fault and no, he wasn't too slow as Red Bull are bizarrely suggesting. You can nit-pick that maybe he should have been cleverer in knowing what was going to happen to regain the position into the corner, and I have, but it was the team who engineered that situation.
Vettel has yet to develop a proper character and ditch his prima donna attitude.
It's more than just that, and it has nothing to do with Mark Webber. I question whether Vettel really is that good, and that's why Vettel looks as if he is feeling the pressure and the reason for all those hand gestures. Getting beat by a team mate is one thing, but self-doubt when the holy grail is in sight is quite another. I question how he failed to defend his position against Hamilton at the start in that race and I question why he felt the need to go down the inside of Webber when it was clear he had a straight line speed advantage and could have easily passed him before the corner and got the optimum line on the outside. The best drivers always think ahead when overtaking given the cirumstances. It's not late braking, being aggressive or anything else. It's thinking ahead in a few tenths of a second.
The penny dropped for me at Monaco. I seriously question his performance there where all the champions and promising drivers have at least showed something, if not won. Jim Clark was always fast there even if he didn't win and Senna was obviously good there. Prost was competent if not spectacularly fast. Previous champions like Schumacher have won a few times, Alonso won there under a fair bit of pressure, Hamilton pulled a win out of the bag there and Raikkonen won in 2005 with a great performance in qualifying as well as pushing a rather rubbish car to the front row last year. They've all made the difference at Monaco. But for the safety cars Webber would have been a minute down the road. Vettel just doesn't add up. I want to see......something, and it's not there.
....and the Nurburgring last year. How can you get outdriven by your team mate in the same car to the extent that he gives you the time of a pit lane penalty, and you still can't beat him? I know those races are few and far between, but the questions rain down.
The problem for Red Bull is that somebody like Schumacher, although he got favourable treatment, was good enough to warrant that treatment without making his team look
too stupid. Vettel is making his team look stupid. Red Bull just look desperate at the moment, not only providing silly excuses such as that chassis change after Monaco but now having to engineer situations where Vettel can win when he should just be scoring points when he can.
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