Will Ricciardo hamper Vettel's stats?

[Moxie]

I don't thimk four championships makes Vettel a great driver. The great drivers learn the characteristics of a car and adapt quickly. Senna winning the 1991 Brazilian GP having run the last several laps with only sixth gear is one legend of such adaptability. In a car that is suboptimal, Vettle is underperforming, pure and simple. it is to early to tell if Riccairdo will achieve greatness, but his ability to out drive Vettel does cast shade over the senior driver. Whether or not Alonzo matches Vettels four championships, he has already established himself as one of the great drivers, for repeatedly taking $hitboxes and driving them for all they are worth.



Personally i'd prefer to see the whole lot of them race 1968 VW Beetles with a stick shift and mismatched tires. I'm certain that would show us something about driver ability.

[SectorOne]

Perez comments made prior to the 2013 season.

"In terms of pure speed, Nico Rosberg is the fastest German," Perez is quoted as saying.
"But Sebastian is the more complete driver and a great champion," the 22-year-old added.

http://www.f1zone.net/news/rosberg-fast ... rez/17398/

[Andres125sx]

I don´t think Vettel mastered the EBD car, if you watch the onboard cameras, he did virtually zero corrections in four seasson. Exageration, I know, but not that much. That car was on rails, what special skills do you need to drive such a car fast?

As someone said, we only have Webber as a reference, and sorry mate (I think is a really nice guy), but I don´t see Webber as a good reference, because he´s never been a top driver, but also because of the team. To me it was obvious the team did prefer Vettel winning better than Webber. This is F1, marketing plays a huge role and we´ve seen it quite often on this sport. It´s the same we saw with both McLaren and FIA favouring Hamilton in 2007

I had some doubts about if Vettel just need some adaptation, but the more I read and think about it, more conviced I am about it was the car. Vettel obviously is a very good driver too, but 4 consecutive championships are due to some sort of greatness. In this case to me it´s clear, the greatness was in the car, not in the driver


And for those thinking I´m just a Vettel hater..... Aren´t you then a Newey´s hater? Why Vettel deserve more respect and or credit than Newey? Credit must go to those who deserve it, and IMHO the success of Red Bull era came from Newey, so I don´t think it´s fair to focus the discussion on Vettel

Heck, Mercedes is supposed to provide 80bhp more than the rest, and even so Red Bull is still second best team, faster than Williams, Force India, McLaren.... all of them with a much more powerfull engine.... I´m the only one finding this awesome?

[Andres125sx]

I knew talking about 2007 was risky on a british forum, but didn´t expect a downvote that fast

[Juzh]

The RB10 is as stable a base as I've seen this year....

Too long to quote entire stuff but this relates to your entire post.

Well, for once we agree on something FH. Strange things can happen around here.

I've been a vettel supporter for years, and still am, however when it's time to face the music facts are there in plain view. And facts say this year ric has had the measure of vettel. Yes, vettel had more reliability problems which hampered his weekends, but enough time has past since the start of the season to have somewhat enough of a balance and material to observe and make judgements.
I've been stuck to live timing for almost every race so far, and when on equal terms ric has at least 2-3thns advantage on pure pace during the race. Often times even more than that. Another thing vettel is unable to to this year is consistency. Especially under pressure. In any onboard race i've watched he's almost unable to do a single lap without some kind of error or missing the apex. On old tires things get worse and worse. Compare that to ric who drives like a machine. There are deeper issues for vettel which we simply can't all throw to the lack of EBD. It seems like he's hurting more from lack of front end if anything.
Take RB6 for example. Yes, car was on rails, but it had so much positive turn in it was virtually impossible to run wide or miss the apex. RB7 while also being stuck hard to the ground, for whatever reason had much less front end and mistakes started to surface. It had so much traction though it didn't really matter. RB8 was even worse (we know that story), but then came RB9 which was much better and voila, in comes unbeatable vettel again. Worth noting is that while RB9 had more turn in than RB8 and 7, it still couldn't hold a candle to RB6.

Just look at this:

[SectorOne]

It seems like he's hurting more from lack of front end if anything.

I disagree, it´s rear DF he´s missing.
Otherwise he would have run out of front wing many times this season and it has not happened.

[FoxHound]

@Juzh

I was having an episode of momentary clarity, Juzh.

Regarding the comparison, I think the biggest difference for the 2 cars were tyres.
And as SectorOne has said, it is the rear Vettel is struggling with....Or more accurately, the way the car rotates through the corner.
Having less rear DF will massively affect the way the car behaves in, through and out of corners. And this is where I theorise, Ricciardo having more experience of less rear DF, and how to deal and drive around the issue is in a more advantageous position.

The real question here is, Will Vettel be able to overcome his reliance of the EBD/Coanda driven DF?

When you have a clear indicators of rear biased DF technology being removed, and a driver suffers....and then openly states his issues as he has.... you have to say the omens don't look good on Vettel making a resurgence any time soon.

[Pierce89]

Difficult to say, but I still have the feeling Vettel is 4 times WDC because of Newey´s car and most drivers in the grid would have same track record.... or even better (2009). Just a feeling tough

Most drivers on the grid would have been 2nd to Webber in those RBs, not just a feeling.

Webber had nothing on Ricciardo. Webber's not even the fastest guy at Porsche. Hartley(who got kicked out of the RBR young driver program.) is consistently quicker than him, as is Jani.

[Juzh]

Difficult to say, but I still have the feeling Vettel is 4 times WDC because of Newey´s car and most drivers in the grid would have same track record.... or even better (2009). Just a feeling tough

Most drivers on the grid would have been 2nd to Webber in those RBs, not just a feeling.

Webber had nothing on Ricciardo. Webber's not even the fastest guy at Porsche. Hartley(who got kicked out of the RBR young driver program.) is consistently quicker than him, as is Jani.

That's bad.

[henra]

Webber had nothing on Ricciardo. Webber's not even the fastest guy at Porsche. Hartley(who got kicked out of the RBR young driver program.) is consistently quicker than him, as is Jani.

In all Fairness to Webber it has to be said that a lot of very good F1 drivers have failed in other racing series before. Ralf Schumacher in DTM being a point in case. Or more bluntly: Very rarely have ex F1 Drivers ever shone in other racing series after leaving F1. The driving style required in F1 in order to be fast is very specific and doesn't work well in most other racing series.

F1 is all about breaking early, straigtening the car as early as possble and fully on the throttle as early as possible. In racing series with heavier cars with inferior power/weight ratio that is not a good idea. It is much more important to carry as much speed through the turn as possible. Unlearning deeply ingrained F1 habits seems very difficult, though.

[bxc]

I think Ricciardo has a bit lucked into RB10 suiting him completely. Anyone who followed him in his TorroRosso days could notice that he even wasn't very good on tires, he was very average. People questioned his race pace because JEV often would caught him in races(like he does the same to Vettel) despite usually starting much lower on the grid. I don't think many really thought in 2013 that he was stand out talent. Some drivers are always good on tires, like Alosno, some are good only in certain type of cars or with certain type of tires - which seems to be the case for Ricciardo(and Vettel in previous years...) Maybe it's just Newey rocketships bring every good(but not great) driver to the top end of the grid.

[JimClarkFan]

I think Ricciardo has a bit lucked into RB10 suiting him completely. Anyone who followed him in his TorroRosso days could notice that he even wasn't very good on tires, he was very average. People questioned his race pace because JEV often would caught him in races(like he does the same to Vettel) despite usually starting much lower on the grid. I don't think many really thought in 2013 that he was stand out talent. Some drivers are always good on tires, like Alosno, some are good only in certain type of cars or with certain type of tires - which seems to be the case for Ricciardo(and Vettel in previous years...) Maybe it's just Newey rocketships bring every good(but not great) driver to the top end of the grid.

I'm not sure we can say that the car suits him. What I think happened RIC is that he was in a car that just wasn't very good, and was put into a car which was much better. Riccardio has been ringing the neck of a poor Torro Rosso week in and out for 2 years whilst Vettel has had the time of his life stroking round a Red Bull on rails.

So when Riccardio finally got his hands on a RB10 it probably seems like a dream to drive in comparison to the Torro Rosso, whereas the RB10 for Vettel is probably the worst car he has had in 5-6 years.

[Sevach]

It seems like he's hurting more from lack of front end if anything.

I disagree, it´s rear DF he´s missing.
Otherwise he would have run out of front wing many times this season and it has not happened.

And to me it's engine driveability

[PlatinumZealot]

I don´t think Vettel mastered the EBD car, if you watch the onboard cameras, he did virtually zero corrections in four seasson. Exageration, I know, but not that much. That car was on rails, what special skills do you need to drive such a car fast?

As someone said, we only have Webber as a reference, and sorry mate (I think is a really nice guy), but I don´t see Webber as a good reference, because he´s never been a top driver, but also because of the team. To me it was obvious the team did prefer Vettel winning better than Webber. This is F1, marketing plays a huge role and we´ve seen it quite often on this sport. It´s the same we saw with both McLaren and FIA favouring Hamilton in 2007

I rate Webber as a good "brawler." One of the best of all time in traffic. I also thought he was close to Vettel in terms of skill, having had more bad luck. I WAS WRONG. I did not rate Vettel that highly UNTIL I saw the Singapore 2013 qualifying on board videos. I implore everyone to watch them and compare Vettel's with Webber's. I do like Webber two times more than Vettel as a person, but being the objective guy that I am, Webber is not close to him when it comes to "driving the course." To me the highlight of that onboard was how Vettel predicted the motions of his RB9 much much earlier than Webber..... Vettel was steering much much before the car reached the apex! while Webber looked like he was wrestiling with the tail of a dragon.I did not for once believe that the RB9 was on rails for that qualifying the way Vettel was hustling that car. The video made it so clear to me how Vettel was gaining time corner after corner over the sloppy Webber... it was just... sublime driving. Vettel is a good driver. As for 2014 I have my theories why he is being outperformed. The notion of the car not suiting his style can be easily disproved...

[PlatinumZealot]

Lol @ topic.
No, Ricciardo didnt hamper Vettels stats