2011 Formula One Korean Grand Prix

Yeah, in the first half Alonso was in the dirty air of other drivers. he was very quick in the end but I wonder why he said "I give up". Never heard anything like that from Alonso. I assume that his tyres had worn out, hence the words.

Fixed

Yeh that's fair enough. I shouldn't have made such a big assumption.

Let's see why Vettel has done so few overtaking moves compared to Button, since it's Vettels weakness as the CRITICS say. First , F1 is not a spec series, meaning the cars are not equal, meaning there's always a faster car. In this season 2011, the fastest cars have been Red Bull followed by McLaren, then by Ferrari. That means that in quali you should see in the top two rows Red Bulls, and McLarens. When you see Button or Hamilton NOT in those two rows in quali means they underperformed, for whatever reason. So when you have Button that qualifies 13, of course he's going to pass at least 9 cars, they all are slower than his. That makes anyone look like superman, blowing by a car that's a second slower than yours. That means most of those precious passes are simply overrated, since all it shows is their lack of performance at qualifying.

But what makes these drivers overall more talented and well-rounded than Vettel is their ability to overcome a poor qualifying session and still win the race.
To date, Vettel has not shown this ability to recover when he has a below-standard qualifying performance.

There's no need for the sarcastic and argumentative responses. You're entitled to your opinion but not everyone has to agree.

To say that Vettel is less because he has to recover from a poor quali and still win the race is unfounded. Since 2005 Fernando has won 26 races, qualifying in this order 1,1,2,6,1,3,1,4,3,1,1,1,1,5,1,2,1,2,1,15,4,3,2,1,1,3. avg=2.6
Lewis has won 16, qualifying in this order 1,1,2,1,1,3,4,1,1,4,1,2,1,2,3,3. avg=1.9
Jenson has won 12, qualifying in this order 4,1,1,4,1,1,2,4,5,7,3,2. avg=2.9
Vettel has won 20, qualifying in this order 1,1,1,1,2,3,1,1,2,1,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,1,1,2. avg=1.3

Fernando's 26 wins mostly come out of the first and second row, with only 3 wins out the top 4 spots. One from 5, and 6 place, that's the third row, and the 15th place which was Singapore 2008 or CRASHGATE.
Hamilton's 16 wins have all come out of the first two rows.
Jenson has 12 wins with his worst starting spot at 7th, that 's Canada this year, aided by a safety car. If you see his 6 wins at Brawn, 4 came from 1st place and the other two from 2nd and 4th. His 5th and 7th where races affected by rain.
Vettel has 20 wins with his worst spot being from 3rd.
Out of these 4 top drivers they have a sum of 74 GP wins, 5 of those have been won out of the front two rows, or 6.8%.

In Formula 1 you win from the front. I don't see how these drivers are more talented and well-rounded than Vettel. Fernando, Lewis, and Jenson have done the exact same thing as Vettel. When they have the fastest car they put it up front and win.

You are quick to critic Vettel for something he has not done in a long time and that was have a poor qualifying performance. The last time Vettel qualified outside one of the top 4 grid slots was at the 2009 Brazilian Grand Prix when he started 16th on the grid and finished 5th.

Wow, can we not share opinions without being jumped on any more? Jeez!

It is my opinion that while Vettel is a tremendous F1 driver and obviously very successful so far in his career, there are other drivers on the grid that are more talented and better at racing.

Is that OK with everyone? Or would you like me to get written permission to share my opinions?

Ramon I think it would add to the quality of this debate if you furthered your analysis to cover all podiums achieved by those same drivers during this period. It would add to the statistical reliability of the data.

Actually Jenson's record should read: 14,1,1,4,1,1,2,4,5,7,3,2 with an average of 3.75 :wink:

It means he has 25% of his wins from outside the front 2 rows, and 50% of his wins when not on the front row.

LOL, that took me some time. All these 4 drivers are as good as they come, as for Vettel, the Red Bull ain't gonna be the fastest forerver. Hopefully next year it'll be more even with the top teams, and the WDC be decided in the last race, like it should.

Glad you got the subtle humour

Nothing wrong with this opinion, even as a fan of Vettel I am not 100% convinced that he is the best driver (though each race he does something that makes me think he may be the best). Since the cars are not equal it is extremely difficult to rate who is the best and who is not. All we know is that Vettel has done everything he needed to do with his extremely good car. No you don't need to think Vettel is best, just don't go telling us that Vettel has never passed people because we know this to be wrong. In the last several seasons Vettel is just extremely good at qualifying hence the reason why he starts in front of most of the other competition and never needs to pass them to win.

OK. Lets just leave it there.

You can't end a topic in a forum :L

Then lets leave it here then

I just meant our particular 'debate'

100% agreed. Even im a fan of Vettel, but I also say the same thing. He's just making very good use of the car thats all. He's a very good driver but not the BEST driver.