The curious case of Sebastian Vettel

[Jolle]

Interesting discussion.
I rate Rosberg slightly higher than Vettel
a) Went against top tier driver and won. Raised his game to that level
b) Knew when to quit

Funny I don't remember Nico driving particularly better that season Hamilton had a bad year from himself compared to other seasons. Plus one more dnf equals Nico wins by 5 points.

Nico was decent but he was not better than seb.

Agreed,

Nico won for 2 main reasons.

1. Lewis's ICE failure in Sepang
2. Lewis did not getting on top of his starts (AUS, BHR, ITA, JAP).

Don't forget his PU failures during the Q sessions in the early races and a engine penalty after the summer break.

[ENGINE TUNER]

Agreed,

Nico won for 2 main reasons.

1. Lewis's ICE failure in Sepang
2. Lewis did not getting on top of his starts (AUS, BHR, ITA, JAP).

Nico had his share, about equal actually, of poor starts. It was more to do with the clutch than either of the drivers.

The real difference maker was the multiple PU failures for Hamilton, specifically in Sapang.

ROS and VET were virtual clones, same strengths and weaknesses. Both fairly strong qualifyers and good out front with a lead. Neither very adaptable, especially in the wet, both poor under pressure and terrible in wheel to wheel battles/racecraft.

[turbof1]

That's a bit too toxic and unreasonable, especially given Manoah2u specifically spoke about "this race". His first stint pace was better than Charles, who overcooked his tyres. Vettel did drive well. Could he have qualified better? Sure; he has been outqualified in the last 8 Grand Prix' by Charles. He did still have the race pace.

I'll leave it in the middle if Vettel disobeyed the pre-agreed strategy. Yes, he ignored a direct order, but he might have given the place to Charles deeper into the race when it was safer to do so.

He outpaced LEC over the first stint only because he was in the lead with clean air that he should have given back within the first 5 laps. As has been mentioned several times in the race thread, LEC kept within 2s for the first 9 laps. If LEC overcooked his tires it was because he was keeping close to VET expecting VET to follow the team agreement/orders.

Vettel drove away (and no, I don't care if that took 3 laps or 9 laps. Fact is he did) from Leclerc to the point Leclerc was in fresh air himself, and Leclerc overcooking his tyres is still Leclerc's responsibility.

He did a good race. No not a special race, not a legendary race, just a good race. But he did have the necessary pace. Criticism is fine, but also has to be appropiate. For your reminder:

let us stay objective and reasonable, shall we

.

[marmer]

Agreed,

Nico won for 2 main reasons.

1. Lewis's ICE failure in Sepang
2. Lewis did not getting on top of his starts (AUS, BHR, ITA, JAP).

Nico had his share, about equal actually, of poor starts. It was more to do with the clutch than either of the drivers.

The real difference maker was the multiple PU failures for Hamilton, specifically in Sapang.

ROS and VET were virtual clones, same strengths and weaknesses. Both fairly strong qualifyers and good out front with a lead. Neither very adaptable, especially in the wet, both poor under pressure and terrible in wheel to wheel battles/racecraft.

vettel has a few good results in the wet. and normally he is fairly rapid in such conditons even if he does stuff it into a wall. germany and canada 11 come to mind

[lh13]

Nico won for 2 main reasons.

1. Lewis's ICE failure in Sepang
2. Lewis did not getting on top of his starts (AUS, BHR, ITA, JAP).

Nico didn't win because of Lewis' poor starts, he actually won because he himself made better starts, as clutch was problematic for both. So yeah, he didn't win because Lewis' starts were poor, he won because his own starts were better. There is a difference between saying these two things.

And there is not guarantee that Lewis would have won without that Sepang failure. If Lewis could have won in Sepang, the Nico might not have spun either, and finished second (Nico 291 points, Lewis 290 points), but let's just consider that Lewis won and Nico finished 4th (instead of the actual 3rd) Lewis would have had 290 points, and Nico 285. Nico could have won any of the last 4 races if he was not in safe mode, so yeah, it's not black and white that Nico won because of this or that.

[izzy]

Nico didn't win because of Lewis' poor starts, he actually won because he himself made better starts, as clutch was problematic for both. So yeah, he didn't win because Lewis' starts were poor, he won because his own starts were better. There is a difference between saying these two things.

And there is not guarantee that Lewis would have won without that Sepang failure. If Lewis could have won in Sepang, the Nico might not have spun either, and finished second (Nico 291 points, Lewis 290 points), but let's just consider that Lewis won and Nico finished 4th (instead of the actual 3rd) Lewis would have had 290 points, and Nico 285. Nico could have won any of the last 4 races if he was not in safe mode, so yeah, it's not black and white that Nico won because of this or that.

the full catalogue for Lewis 2016 is: ERS failures in China Q1 and Sochi Q3, faulty engine mode in Baku, new PU=back of grid in Spa, hydraulics fault spoilt FP2 in Singapore, blown engine in lead in Sepang. That's at least 40 points and is totally black and white how Rosberg got his title. He had one really bad start to Lewis' two, it wasn't much of a pattern.

of course ROS was good enough to be close enough to get that lucky, but that wdc doesn't put him in the same class as Seb i don't think

[PlatinumZealot]

Nico should be faster than Vettel if we go by speed of Vettel vs Leclerc and Riccardo versus Hulkenburg (perez and button).

I think Vettel's advantage of Leclerc is downright experience. Sooner or later Leclerc will learn though.

[Giblet]

Agreed,

Nico won for 2 main reasons.

1. Lewis's ICE failure in Sepang
2. Lewis did not getting on top of his starts (AUS, BHR, ITA, JAP).

Nico had his share, about equal actually, of poor starts. It was more to do with the clutch than either of the drivers.

The real difference maker was the multiple PU failures for Hamilton, specifically in Sapang.

ROS and VET were virtual clones, same strengths and weaknesses. Both fairly strong qualifyers and good out front with a lead. Neither very adaptable, especially in the wet, both poor under pressure and terrible in wheel to wheel battles/racecraft.

vettel has a few good results in the wet. and normally he is fairly rapid in such conditons even if he does stuff it into a wall. germany and canada 11 come to mind

But none of those dominant drives we've seen from the likes of Lewis and Max in the wet.

[ENGINE TUNER]

Vettel drove away (and no, I don't care if that took 3 laps or 9 laps. Fact is he did) from Leclerc to the point Leclerc was in fresh air himself, and Leclerc overcooking his tyres is still Leclerc's responsibility.

He did a good race. No not a special race, not a legendary race, just a good race. But he did have the necessary pace. Criticism is fine, but also has to be appropiate. For your reminder:

let us stay objective and reasonable, shall we

.

You don't care if it took 3 or 9 laps, but you are asking me to "stay objective and reasonable". Hypocrisy at its finest.

Anyone will cook their tires if remaining within 2s for 9 laps trying to stay close to a driver that is supposed to give you the position back aND is on the radios saYing "get closer". That is reasonable and objective. VET did not show better pace, just the willingness to go back on a pre race agreement.

[ENGINE TUNER]

vettel has a few good results in the wet. and normally he is fairly rapid in such conditons even if he does stuff it into a wall. germany and canada 11 come to mind

Far more mistakes than good drives.
2009 Malaysia spun off
Poor qually Italy 2017
Poor start/Start crash Singapore 2017
Poor qually in Japan 2018
Too many to list

[turbof1]

Vettel drove away (and no, I don't care if that took 3 laps or 9 laps. Fact is he did) from Leclerc to the point Leclerc was in fresh air himself, and Leclerc overcooking his tyres is still Leclerc's responsibility.

He did a good race. No not a special race, not a legendary race, just a good race. But he did have the necessary pace. Criticism is fine, but also has to be appropiate. For your reminder:

let us stay objective and reasonable, shall we

.

You don't care if it took 3 or 9 laps, but you are asking me to "stay objective and reasonable". Hypocrisy at its finest.

Anyone will cook their tires if remaining within 2s for 9 laps trying to stay close to a driver that is supposed to give you the position back aND is on the radios saYing "get closer". That is reasonable and objective. VET did not show better pace, just the willingness to go back on a pre race agreement.

Yes, because he got away all the same. It's a strawman's argument to say "he took 9 laps to do it" (which for the record you have been told by an other person is factually wrong and I will verify that later on) when he created a gap of 4plus seconds by the time Charles pitted. There's no hypocrisy involved in ignoring irrelevant arguments. He got away all the same. Charles overcooked his tyres at a 2s interval which is outside the turbulent wake and thus outside the leading car's influence. Charles got told to be closer yes, he also got quickly told to back off again. Looking after the tyres is ultimately the driver's responsibility. Nobody else's. He has a brain, he certainly has the feel for the car. Would he drive off the road if the team told him that? No of course not. Would he insist on driving closer to Vettel when his tyres starting to loose grip due putting too much heat in it? If he did, then he made the wrong call. I certainly don't see how this would account for an argument that undermines Vettel effort of being faster than Leclerc in that stint.

Stating that Vettel had the upperhand pace wise is the logic conclusion, unless you want to argue next that Leclerc was upset by having a red car in front of him and could not emotionally process that. Or maybe you want argue Leclerc had the upperhand for the first 50 meters of the race. Maybe you'd like to argue Vettel did not put his car as centered in his pit parking space like Leclerc did. Do you find me unreasonable for bringing up those suggestions? Good, because that is exactly what an argument "he took x laps to do it" entitles. I absolutely hate to bring up Vin Diesel quotes, but this is appropiate regarding this weird debate about how long it takes to carve out a pace-supremacy-indicating pace:

(of course you can laugh at the fact Vettel did not win and had to give up due a technical failure, and thereby ignore the underlining point I am trying to make)

I'm not getting into an argument about Vettel ignoring a direct order. Again, I already acknowledged that. The point was race pace and it will remain race pace.

[ENGINE TUNER]

Yes, because he got away all the same. It's a strawman's argument to say "he took 9 laps to do it" (which for the record you have been told by an other person is factually wrong and I will verify that later on) when he created a gap of 4plus seconds by the time Charles pitted. There's no hypocrisy involved in ignoring irrelevant arguments. He got away all the same. Charles overcooked his tyres at a 2s interval which is outside the turbulent wake and thus outside the leading car's influence. Charles got told to be closer yes, he also got quickly told to back off again. Looking after the tyres is ultimately the driver's responsibility. Nobody else's.

Stating that Vettel had the upperhand pace wise is the logic conclusion, unless you want to argue next that Leclerc was upset by having a red car in front of him and could not emotionally process that. Or maybe you want argue Leclerc had the upperhand for the first 50 meters of the race. Maybe you'd like to argue Vettel did not put his car as centered in his pit parking space like Leclerc did. Do you find me unreasonable for bringing up those suggestions? Good, because that is exactly what an argument "he took x laps to do it" entitles. I absolutely hate to bring up Vin Diesel quotes, but this is appropiate regarding this weird debate about how long it takes to carve out a pace-supremacy-indicating pace:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGZa-yf8vMU

I'm not getting into an argument about Vettel ignoring a direct order. Again, I already acknowledged that. The point was race pace and it will remain race pace.

I'm not getting into this again after this. Chastising Vettel when he does something wrong is completely fine. Knock yourself out with that. Being gratuitous negative when there is no case for it (again, we already cleared the part about ignoring orders) is against forum policy. And next time there will be action taken against that.

This is so getting me a complaint about "abuse of power" and "infriction of right of speech". Well that's what I get for preaching being reasonable and people flinging it back in my face.

The gap after 9 laps was 1.95s, after 10 laps was 2.16s. Yes LEC stayed with VET the first 10 laps, yes that overheated his tires, Yes it proves that VET had no pace supremacy over LEC, only that he had fresh air. Fresh air given to him by a team order to give him the slipstream at the start. Yes there is still turbulent air within 2s of a car ahead. Yes you are abusing your power. No, it is not irrelevant that LEC stayed right on his tail for the first 10 laps.

[RZS10]

lap	gap	
1	1.599	SC
2	1.273	SC - Both drivers are told they'd do the swap later in the race (there ya go turbo :^) )
3	0.888	SC
4	1.159	Flying lap.
5	1.350	Charles says the gap to Hamilton is fine, Seb is being told to let Charles by
6	1.376	Charles is being told Seb will let him by that lap, after discussing with Seb it's supposed to happen the next lap
7	1.372	Seb is being told to let Charles by. Charles is being told that Seb will let him by next lap. Vettel says he should close the gap, LEC says it's too hard.
8	1.686	Vettel is told to let Charles by, ignores the message, Charles is told Seb will let him by that lap.
9	1.949	Charles is being told that they will swap later on.
10	2.164	Charles obviously drops back to get out of dirty air in the next few laps.
11	2.726	
12	3.159	
13	3.484	
14	3.672	
15	3.659	
16	3.986	
17	3.861	
18	3.908	
19	4.141	
20	4.387	
21	4.231	
22	9.244	Pitstop Charles.

So, being 'objective' ... here's the key facts:

Leclerc stayed close to Vettel during the first few laps when Vettel was being told to let him by, he pushed hard on those initial laps, during the discussion when Vettel refused to obay team orders Charles still managed to stay within 1.3 seconds, dropped to 1.6 for one lap and the gap only opened properly once Charles got told that they'll swap places later in the race. At that point Leclerc only had to care about his gap to Lewis (team radio stopped mentioning the gap to Seb)

Leclerc did NOT overcook his tyres at a safe 2s interval that is 'outside the turbulent wake', he did it in the initial phase of the race when the place swap was planned.

Once he knew they would swap places anyways he gradually dropped back to around 4s on tyres that were already in worse shape than Seb's ... the last seven laps before the pit stop Charles was even quicker than Seb three times.

The actual 'safe' distance is more towards 3 to 3.5 seconds, not 2 (post race press conference - Hamilton: "When you're towing at two seconds it's quite hard to follow, ehm, so yea i dropped back to around three ... three point three or three point five seconds")

So counting from the 'safe' gap that Leclerc allowed to open Vettel needed nine laps to open a gap of one second which is a little over one tenth per lap "pace advantage" on better tyres........

[TAG]

Moral of the story is, sucks to be a Vettel fan nowadays. But no worries, he'll come out stronger for it... or retire.

[turbof1]

Yes, because he got away all the same. It's a strawman's argument to say "he took 9 laps to do it" (which for the record you have been told by an other person is factually wrong and I will verify that later on) when he created a gap of 4plus seconds by the time Charles pitted. There's no hypocrisy involved in ignoring irrelevant arguments. He got away all the same. Charles overcooked his tyres at a 2s interval which is outside the turbulent wake and thus outside the leading car's influence. Charles got told to be closer yes, he also got quickly told to back off again. Looking after the tyres is ultimately the driver's responsibility. Nobody else's.

Stating that Vettel had the upperhand pace wise is the logic conclusion, unless you want to argue next that Leclerc was upset by having a red car in front of him and could not emotionally process that. Or maybe you want argue Leclerc had the upperhand for the first 50 meters of the race. Maybe you'd like to argue Vettel did not put his car as centered in his pit parking space like Leclerc did. Do you find me unreasonable for bringing up those suggestions? Good, because that is exactly what an argument "he took x laps to do it" entitles. I absolutely hate to bring up Vin Diesel quotes, but this is appropiate regarding this weird debate about how long it takes to carve out a pace-supremacy-indicating pace:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGZa-yf8vMU

I'm not getting into an argument about Vettel ignoring a direct order. Again, I already acknowledged that. The point was race pace and it will remain race pace.

I'm not getting into this again after this. Chastising Vettel when he does something wrong is completely fine. Knock yourself out with that. Being gratuitous negative when there is no case for it (again, we already cleared the part about ignoring orders) is against forum policy. And next time there will be action taken against that.

This is so getting me a complaint about "abuse of power" and "infriction of right of speech". Well that's what I get for preaching being reasonable and people flinging it back in my face.

The gap after 9 laps was 1.95s, after 10 laps was 2.16s. Yes LEC stayed with VET the first 10 laps, yes that overheated his tires, Yes it proves that VET had no pace supremacy over LEC, only that he had fresh air. Fresh air given to him by a team order to give him the slipstream at the start. Yes there is still turbulent air within 2s of a car ahead. Yes you are abusing your power. No, it is not irrelevant that LEC stayed right on his tail for the first 10 laps.

I edited that latter part out (before I noticed your reply) because although I have a job to do as moderator and taking action against gratuitous negativity, it is not exactly appropiate since I got too involved into the argument already (and was partially wrong, see below).

I also saw the list now. Leclerc did stay for lap after lap within a roughly 1.5s window. So yes, that was correct and very likely the reason why he overcooked his tyres. However, Leclerc doing that was dumb of him. He threw out his tyres like that. And I still believe that is on him.

Still, I might have judged too hastingly and will have to conclude that the pace difference is not clear if both were in clean air. You'll get an apology from me for that. I will leave it at inclonclusive, but with also the notion that Leclerc should still have known better. It's not rocket science that driving that close on worn softs will wear them out quickly. I will take the list of the radio messages as well (to see at which points they were given) to see the full picture.

EDIT: https://www.racefans.net/2019/10/01/vet ... ranscript/

He was told on lap 2 that they will switch places later in the race. So Leclerc staying inside that dirty air from Vettel, and hence wearing down his tyres is Leclerc. Now, I will make the caviat he could not back down a lot all at once since Hamilton did follow rather closely, but there was room to drop to 2-2.5s.