Only part of my post was aimed at Luminis and some of it was aimed at failing_finn but I was on the phone app so I couldn't multi quote, apologies if anybody I felt I was aiming it directly at one person.
'Petty nonsense'?... This was my opinion on the subject, if you didn't agree with it then give your opinion but truth of the fact is that the Teams have said the Red Bull is just ahead on performance and that Sebastian Vettel is more of a threat to them than Mark Webber. All I was trying to point out here is that they are suppose to have the 'same' car just different setups so the pace difference shouldn't be as big as it has been last year and early this year.
Anyway agree or don't agree but that is my opinion.
Actually I don't really have an issue with most of what you said, as your points were fairly reasonable 👍 Although the last paragraph was a bit hard to interpret: "People will say 'ahh but Alonso said he was racing Adrian Newey rather than Vettel', so why is it that he isn't racing Webber as well as Vettel? Reliability? Both have had roughly the same problems. It has been down to the fact that Vettel is quick and is managing to stay out of mid field traffic meaning less chances of incidents.
So at the moment it is clear that Red Bull possibly just has the edge over McLaren and Ferrari, but the reason Vettel is up there is because he is clearly quicker than the rest at most Grand Prix."
I'd just suggest that you take the time to properly direct your answers (because your counter argument really made little sense without the proper context), particularly when it's a bit brash in tone ("woah, woah, woah", "And in my opinion what Ferrari did today with the grid was purely cheating in sheer desperation"...which seemed a rather unncessary throw in comment.)
And let's be brutally honest, you don't simply get carried by a car in your second F1 season to finish 2nd in the WDC.
If the rules had been clearer on the double diffusers in 2009, I'm willing to bet he could've taken the championship the first season he was in a decent car.
Why people continue to put Vettel's car as the number one reason to his success so far, is beyond me. Surely then Webber would be doing nearly as good if the car is that fast. He is nowhere near Vettel. Although, let's be honest, Webber has been around for a very long time now, and probably not his prime anymore.
I think it's reasonable to say the car (and team behind him) has been the number 1 reason for his success, as it likely has
made the difference in being able to often dominate against drivers the caliber of Hamilton and Alonso in particular. This doesn't mean Vettel isn't as good as those other 2 in my eyes, it just means the car/team behind him has likely been the main ingredient/differentiater in being able to achieve 2 straight WDC against his main opponents, and what is looking to be a 3rd straight.
For me, it's hard not to put Vettel up there with the likes of Alonso and Hamilton though (because I do). His raw speed is bloddy impressive, as well as his consistancy, passion and competitiveness. I think he still needs some time and more experience (understandbly so) to truly prove himself as being the complete package though. Although for me, to a good degree his raw speed and consistancy do a lot to overshadow some of his weaknesses (overtaking and coolness when things don't go right on track), especially when he has a very fast car and having to fight with other cars is mostly a non issue.
Regarding Webber- Ever since the Pirelli's were introduced he hasn't really looked like a legitamate WDC contender, particularly once Red Bull seem to get their car to front of the grid having dialed in the exhaust blowing technology...which always seems to play heavily to Vettel's favor for whatever reason (which is what has always puzzled me to some degree).
I don't see how anyone can genuinely place Webber up there (same for Massa) with the best to begin with, given how inconsistant he can be and his yellow school bus like starts which have become quite common (which in itself is enough for me to not consider him as a top shelf drivers
). So asking why Webber isn't doing better if the car is so good is quite easy to answer, at least in my eyes.
If the Red Bull was that perfect that it doesn't allow for any comparison between Vettel and the other top drivers, like Alonso, you'd see Webber ranking higher. Sure, Webber might be beyond his prime, but if the car was that good, he'd still be in second place, currently. He's a distant fifth, though. Unless you want to insinuate that Webber is, actually, totally rubbish and carried to a fifth place by an overpowered car.
Well I'd say as a Championship contender he is pretty rubbish anymore, particuarly with this generation of tire.
Between his often incredibly poor starts, inconsistant pace, and questionable motivation at times, it's easy to see how he is far from being in contention atm. He also seems to be plauged with a bit more glitches (particularly KERS) than Vettel which hasn't helped his cause, as well as having a team which seems much more focused on the other driver (much like Alonso/Massa @ Ferrari), which likely has meant he has seen less support and development torward his liking.
2010.
But that is not the point of the discussion. The point is, is that Vettel is by no means getting carried by his car. He did the same in 2008 in the Toro Rosso where he finished 31 points ahead of his team mate. He then joins Red Bull alongside Webber, who already had multiple years of experience and out-performed him in 10 from 17 races, having just one full season under his belt and coming just a few points short of becoming a world-champion.
I am by no means a big fan of Vettel, but to continue saying the Red Bull is carrying him to victory is becoming a really silly thing to hang on to.
I haven't really read this thread thoroughly, but would you mind pointing out where this has been said?
For me, Sebastian on the whole has driven superbly over the past couple of years, but I feel the majority of his success has boiled down to having the superior package (car and team behind him), and if the other teams were able to develop cars equal to what Red Bull has managed while having such stellar race management/and general reliability, I think it would have been much more difficult for him to even have half the success (whether poles, wins, or WDC's) he's seen since 2011.
Have you been watching the same races I have the past two years? In the Pirelli/DRS era cars have come from way back in the grid many times -- as the powers that be intend. That started with Webber last year in China or Malaysia when he finished on the podium after beginning the race buried in like the 17th grid spot. And we got another example in Austin with Massa this past weekend finishing 4th after Ferrari voluntarily dropped him to 11th (and I don't think anyone can seriously argue that Massa would have finished higher than 4th had he started in the grid spot he earned).
Nowadays, over a race distance, barring unreliability or pit-stop blunders, car/driver combos basically finish in the position their speed entitles them to. Because of DRS it's impossible for a slower car to keep a faster one behind like Petrov did with Alonso at Abu Dhabi in 2010.
On the broader is-it-the-car-or-is-it-Vettel issue, clearly the RBs 5 through 8 have been plenty fast. But this year McLaren more often than not has had the faster car only to shoot itself in the foot through errors of various kinds. Vettel did plenty of damage mitigation in the early and middle parts of the season, of the sort Alonso is getting such widespread praise for. On the evidence of their careers to date, I'd say Vettel is significantly less mistake-prone than Hamilton and that the two of them barring mistakes are about equally as fast. Alonso and Raikkonen are probably more "complete" drivers than either Vettel or Hamilton but probably can't quite match their speed.
It's quite important to take into consideration other factors that might lead to this though. Vettel has spent most of his carreer thus far at the very front of the grid (or there abouts) when fighting for Championships, which lends itself to being involved in less sketchy mid pack battles or when fighting hard for on track positions. On the other hand, Hamilton has often not had the machinery to avoid having to get into these mid pack fights, which has often led to many of the mistakes we saw particularly last year (as he was beggining to look quite desperate/uneasy due to the RBR/Vettel steam rolling that was taking place).
I think it's fair to say that when Vettel has had to fight heavily with other cars (which we saw just a couple of races ago at Abu Dhabi) he is just as prone to making mistakes, at least from what I've seen. And with that said, IMO a lot of the mistakes he's made have left me scratching my head (thinking that he still has a lot to prove to be recognized as an instinctively efficient/clean overtaker...which he may be something he needs to show throughout a full season in future years).
