Now, I'm a Vettel fan, but this is as far away from the truth as possible.gilgen wrote:
sigh. sometimes it surprises me as to the lack of actual f1 knowledge that is actually posted here! you just cannot assess a person on their points standing at mid season. kvyat has led ricciardo on a number of occasions and has then suffered from mechanical woes to a greater extent than ricciardo and has also had to accede to team orders. also, this is kvyats first year in red bull, and ricciardo also has more f1 experience. driver to driver, it is plain to see that kvyat is a cooler driver than ricciardo, and is less prone to mistakes. so his performance is far more meritous. without mechanical woes, kvyat would be ahead of ricciardo in points, but as i said, points do not tell the true story. as for ricciardo grinding vettel into the dirt? you might like to think that, but you are overlooking two points. vettel stated at the start of the season that he car was a turd. and also, rbr were aware in april last year that seb had signed for ferrari, and that is the reason why they were favouring ricciardo with the best tactics and taking various tactical gambles with vettel.
First of all, it's very bold to say that a forum lacks knowledge. Very often, the human mind trains you to believe that your opinion is correct and while we might still respect another opinion, conviction never really allows us to actually believe that the other person/persons might be correct and might hold a point. I think there is a lot of excellent posters here and in general when I log off, I've learnt something.
You're correct in your stance that Kvyat hasn't exactly fallen by the wayside when pitched against Ricciardo this year, but frankly we need a larger sample size to exactly know who's consistently better. There's no question that Ricciardo has had more speed than Kvyat this year, but there's an 'urge' that's drawing mistakes out of him this year. It's very relative to the 'urge' Vettel suffered from last year. Simply put, Ricciardo was winning GP's and grabbing podiums last year and this year he's unable to do that because the car simply won't allow him to. This is very similar to Vettel in 2014. Vettel was so used to sticking it at the sharp end in qualifying and romping to wins in races that he simply couldn't handle a 'non championship winning capable car.' It can happen to the very very best. Instead of maximizing what you have, you tend to look for chances and at times unreasonable gambles to somehow put yourself back in positions you're used to. The only difference between Sebastian and Daniel is that amidst all the trouble, Daniel is still managing to overshadow Daniil.
Would Ricciardo/Kvyat be able to ground Vettel this year? I highly doubt it. Vettel clearly has his mojo back and generally, when he's in his good place he's quite invincible. I think Ricciardo would still run him close or perhaps even be his equal, but beating him this year looks tough. He's hands down been the best driver of the year.
To conclude, the three of them are in different situations, cars and circumstances this year. One is a proven champion, one aspiring to be one but a proven winner while Kvyat is still finding his feet in F1. In my opinion, we can go on and on about the IF'S and BUT's, but the only thing we know for certain is that Ricciardo was faster and better than Vettel in 2014 and that Vettel has been the class of the field in 2015. Ricciardo has had his moments as well as struggles in 2015, but he's not been able to smash Kvyat like it was expected. Still, of the two he's been the better and quicker driver.
. Funny how they don't need full Sauber's data to make this decision. It's that kind of quality F1 logic.