mnmracer wrote:
I think this is one of the reasons there is such a difference in opinion between the two sides here.
It appears you are very much locked in the idea of Vettel's "particular style of driving", but some of us see things that simply don't match with that idea.
So please, let's try and understand each other.
If Vettel has this particular style of driving, which relies (heavily) on rear-grip, how do you explain Vettel's performances in Torro Rosso, a car where with the exact opposite characteristics. How do you explain Vettel being one the best drivers in the wet, a situation generally lacking rear-grip. And how do you explain Monza 2008? And I don't mean "the Torro Rosso was good that weekend", but if you take a step back and look at it, that weekend was everything which is claimed Vettel can't handle well: he drove a car with little rear-grip, in the rain, on a track with ultra low-dowforce, AND with a dry weather set-up in the pooring rain. If it was the Torro Rosso, Bourdais, who had a set-up suited to the conditions, would not have ended up where he did. Everything was against the Vettel who is pictured here, the Vettel who needs a planted rear.
And that is perhaps the biggest issue. That Vettel likes his rear planted, sure, we all seem to agree on that. But I, and others, can not align the idea of Vettel "operates well only within the confines of a car set up suited to his particular style of driving", with what we have seen. We can not explain Torro Rosso, we can not explain his rain driving and we can not explain Monza 2008, with the idea that Vettel has trouble performing unless the rear is planted.
I hope maybe you can give us your view on those three points. How do you align a statement as you've made, with the performances we've seen that seemingly contradict that statement?
A few things need cleared up before I get to the point.
I am not following you logic in several places: You say the Torro Rosso was the exact opposite of Red Bull, which I presume to mean it had a good front grip and poor rear grip, but you have nothing to back this up - how do you know this? You are also assuming that Vettel didn't have his car set up to exploit rear grip, in the wet and dry - again how do you know this? You are also talking about rear grip as being less in those conditions, but I want to know, less relative to what? It should be clear I am talking about relative rear grip to the front, not absolute rear grip in different cars or conditions. You are also trying to make claim that we should take equal consideration of a one off performance in Monzo 2008 in a car not well understood versus several races at the start of 2012 with a car which we understand very well - why?
Vettel has spent 4 years excelling in a Red Bull, a car highly studied and a car whose characteristics are well understood. It makes more sense to judge Vettels driving style on that basis because we can track changes in the Red Bulls characteristics fairly easily over those years therefore giving us a better platform from which to judge Vettels performance by. I spend all day doing relative quantification as part of my job, and if you don't have a stable reference you can't make any accurate measurement of the target. The reference in this case is red bull, and what we are measuring is Vettels performance. The Torro Rosso win at Monza was a one off, whether you wish to admit it or not. Sure Vettel drove well, but there were a lot of other factors that helped him along the way that weekend. You are asking us to judge Vettel from a one off performance in Monza, in a car whose characteristics was never as closely followed as the RBs, and therefore not nearly as well known as the characteristics of the Red Bulls. How can we accurately measure Vettels performance when we have a shoddy reference? Additionally Vettel has spent a much shorter span of his career in the Torro Rosso compared to RB, since then Vettel has claimed 3 world titles and his driver style has come under much more scrutiny. Given these facts, does it make sense to use his time at Torro Rosso as a suitable reference for Vettels driving style or could more credence be given to his stint in RB?
Lets get some other stuff cleared up too. You are using rear grip in manner that incorrectly implies absolute rear grip. When people refer to rear grip, often they are talking specifically about a car which has the characteristics of the front sliding first. It is a relative term which you are using in an absolute fashion. You can have a car with poor overall grip yet it still might have a grippy rear relative to the front. The rear is simply said to be grippy because you never bring it to a point where it could slide, because the front slides first thereby preventing any sliding of the rear. By way of an example, you can have a car with much more absolute rear grip, say a Red Bull, than a car with much less absolute rear grip, say a Torro Rosso, but yet both cars have characteristics of a grippy rear. This is because on both cars the fronts reach their limit of grip before the rears, relatively speaking both cars have better rear grip despite one car having much more absolute rear grip. I find it very confusing when you throw around rear grip in the manner you are doing (wet weather, Torro Rosso vs RB) - it doesn't make sense.
To the point at hand.
It is not a contradiction to say that Vettel likes rear grip and to use oversteer. Vettel exploits consistent rear grip by inducing the car to oversteer on entry. If a car has poor inconsistent rear grip Vettel doesn't appear to be able to manipulate the rear to his liking - as seen in early 2012. Since you have no provided no evidence to suggest that this is not the case, I see no reason to change my opinion.
