BBC: F1's Greatest Driver

[JimClarkFan]

Vettel number 8.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/1948708

I can see from the comments section that his positioning has not went down so well, the BBC have been slated on this one and rightly so in my view.


Updated List:

List so far;
Number 8 - Sebastian Vettel
Number 9 - Niki Lauda
Number 10 - Fernando Alonso
Number 11 - Alberto Ascari
Number 12 - Gilles Villeneuve
Number 13 - Nigel Mansell
Number 14 - Mika Hakkinen
Number 15 - Lewis Hamilton
Number 16 - Nelson Piquet
Number 17 - Emerson Fittipaldi
Number 18 - Jack Brabham
Number 19 – Graham Hill
Number 20 – Jochen Rindt

[beelsebob]

Yeh, I personally can't see Vettel as number 8... He *may* be that good, but we just can't tell yet. His performances this season, don't really seem to suggest he's that amazing in a less than wonderful car.

[JimClarkFan]

Yeh, I personally can't see Vettel as number 8... He *may* be that good, but we just can't tell yet. His performances this season, don't really seem to suggest he's that amazing in a less than wonderful car.

Exactly. Like everyone says, the Red Bulls in 09, 10 and 11 will be remembered not as the Vettel years but the Newey years. I believe that both Ham and Alonso better than him, and some others like Hulkenburg, Di Resta, Maldonardo and maybe Perez who have more outright talent but have yet to be dealt a hand with which to prove it.

[mnmracer]

Yeh, I personally can't see Vettel as number 8... He *may* be that good, but we just can't tell yet. His performances this season, don't really seem to suggest he's that amazing in a less than wonderful car.

Exactly. Like everyone says, the Red Bulls in 09, 10 and 11 will be remembered not as the Vettel years but the Newey years. I believe that both Ham and Alonso better than him, and some others like Hulkenburg, Di Resta, Maldonardo and maybe Perez who have more outright talent but have yet to be dealt a hand with which to prove it.

Are the early 50's regarded as Ferrari years? Are the 60's regarded as Lotus years?
Or are they regarded as Ascari and Clark years?

[JimClarkFan]

Yeh, I personally can't see Vettel as number 8... He *may* be that good, but we just can't tell yet. His performances this season, don't really seem to suggest he's that amazing in a less than wonderful car.

Exactly. Like everyone says, the Red Bulls in 09, 10 and 11 will be remembered not as the Vettel years but the Newey years. I believe that both Ham and Alonso better than him, and some others like Hulkenburg, Di Resta, Maldonardo and maybe Perez who have more outright talent but have yet to be dealt a hand with which to prove it.

Are the early 50's regarded as Ferrari years? Are the 60's regarded as Lotus years?
Or are they regarded as Ascari and Clark years?

This is stupid.

The difference is that driver in each case was undoubtedly a class act. The Clark years was seen as a partnership, clearly the best driver (acknowledged by everyone at that time) with also the best designer in Chapman. Fangio at Mercedes way back, and Senna/Prost at Mclaren, all stand out drivers and the principles of their respective teams. The Schumacher years is a similar story, Schumacher was the best driver and it was HE who led the Ferrari team to success by taking with him a large chunk of the Benneton technical team and convincing others to join his cause. In each of the aforementioned cases it was the driver who the class act in one way or another, not the technical staff.

Now is that the case with Vettel, is he a class act in any sphere of his operation? He is a top driver, top 5 in the current paddock for sure, top 3 for most although I'm not sure if he would be on my list. The question you have to ask yourself is could any other driver on the grid do what Vettel did in 2010 or 2011? - the answer is a fairly unambiguous yes. A second follow on question is just who is the class act at Red Bull, Vettel or Newey? Again it's clearly Newey, or for want of a better phrase, not Vettel. Newey is a great designer, on par if not better than the likes of Chapman and he has a track record of going from team to team and winning championships Williams>Mclaren>Red Bull.

So no, I don't accept your version, the Red Bull dominance has much less to do with Vettel and much more to do with Newey. The same cannot be said for Fangio, Clark, Schumacher, Senna etc.

[Lurk]

Vettel better than Alonso? What a joke... And I'm not a huge fan of the Spaniard (but I admit he's damn good).

[mnmracer]

Exactly. Like everyone says, the Red Bulls in 09, 10 and 11 will be remembered not as the Vettel years but the Newey years. I believe that both Ham and Alonso better than him, and some others like Hulkenburg, Di Resta, Maldonardo and maybe Perez who have more outright talent but have yet to be dealt a hand with which to prove it.

Are the early 50's regarded as Ferrari years? Are the 60's regarded as Lotus years?
Or are they regarded as Ascari and Clark years?

This is stupid.

The difference is that the Clark years was seen as a partnership, clearly the best driver (acknowledged by everyone at that time) with also the best designer in Chapman. Same with Fangio at Mercedes way back, and Senna/Prost at Mclaren. The Schumacher years is a similar story, Schumacher was the best driver and it was HE who led the Ferrari team to success by taking with him a large chunk of the Benneton technical team and convincing others to join his cause. In each of the aforementioned cases it was the driver who the class act in one way or another, not the technical staff.

Now is that the case with Vettel? He is a top driver, top 5 in the current paddock for sure, top 3 for most although I'm not sure if he would be on my list. The question you have to ask yourself is could any other driver on the grid do what Vettel did in 2010 or 2011? - the answer is a fairly unambiguous yes.

How unambiguous is it that "any other driver on the grid [could] do what Vettel did in 2010 or 2011" if it is a plain and clear fact that that claim is 100% untrue.

If Webber had Vettel's luck in 2010, he would have finished 5th in the championship, 3 race wins down in points.
Mark Webber finished 3rd last year, so he obviously could not have done remotely the same.

A second follow on question is just who is the class act at Red Bull, Vettel or Newey? Again it's clearly Newey, or for want of a better phrase, not Vettel. Newey is a great designer, on par if not better than the likes of Chapman and he has a track record of going from team to team and winning championships Williams>Mclaren>Red Bull.

So no, I don't accept your version, the Red Bull dominance has much less to do with Vettel and much more to do with Newey. The same cannot be said for Fangio, Clark, Schumacher, Senna etc.

Your only argument seems to be 'the difference is because I say it'.

Meanwhile, every one of his teams praised Vettel for his technical knowledge, including a technical director that also worked with Senna. Meanwhile, Vettel spents his nights at the track analyzing data. Meanwhile Vettel is willing to risk a completely different set-up because he's not content racing for 6th. Meanwhile, Vettel is the only one to visit the Pirelli factory. Meanwhile, Vettel turns down personal sponsors so he can focus on racing.

And no disrespect to Newey, who is the best Formula One designer in history, but if you claim that he has never developed a bad car, I have to question your F1 knowledge.

If you can't even acknowledge any of all those facts, you are arguing according a very strange logic.

[Websta]

Have to agree with mnmracer on this one. I don't quite understand the indirect disrespect that Webber is receiving in these Vettel bashing arguments. By claiming that Vettel is really just a good midfield driver, you are essentially saying Webber is an average to below-average midfield driver as it has been abundantly clear that Vettel has had a comfortable edge over Webber (as much as it pains me to admit it) over the 09-011 seasons. And anyone with any reasonable opinion of driver talent would have to rate Webber right towards the pointy end of the midfield drivers (just below the elite drivers). Thus, you would have to rate Vettel in the top 5 drivers easily, top 3 IMO.

Can someone explain to me what they think Alonso could have done in the RB7? Would he have lapped the entire field? Would Hamilton have set pole position at every single race of the season? I'll tell you what they most likely would have done - win between 9 and 13 races and set between 14 and 17 poles.

Edit: I do rate Alonso and Hamilton higher than Vettel, but not by much (Hamilton is a bit dubious given his recent brain fades)

[JimClarkFan]

How unambiguous is it that "any other driver on the grid [could] do what Vettel did in 2010 or 2011" if it is a plain and clear fact that that claim is 100% untrue.

If Webber had Vettel's luck in 2010, he would have finished 5th in the championship, 3 race wins down in points.
Mark Webber finished 3rd last year, so he obviously could not have done remotely the same.

Your only argument seems to be 'the difference is because I say it'.

Meanwhile, every one of his teams praised Vettel for his technical knowledge, including a technical director that also worked with Senna. Meanwhile, Vettel spents his nights at the track analyzing data. Meanwhile Vettel is willing to risk a completely different set-up because he's not content racing for 6th. Meanwhile, Vettel is the only one to visit the Pirelli factory. Meanwhile, Vettel turns down personal sponsors so he can focus on racing.

And no disrespect to Newey, who is the best Formula One designer in history, but if you claim that he has never developed a bad car, I have to question your F1 knowledge.

If you can't even acknowledge any of all those facts, you are arguing according a very strange logic.

I don't doubt that Vettel is a very good driver, or that he has great technical knowledge. I do doubt though that he is the only driver capable of winning the 2010 and 2011 WDCs in the manner with which he did. By comparison I have no doubt that Clark was the greatest driver in his era, or Fangio, or Senna, or Schumacher and I suspect that Alonso will also go down alongside those names.

My point is that Vettel is deemed great because of his stats which are more a product of circumstance than his all round driving ability or his ability to build a team around him to develop a car. Coultard brought Newey to Red Bull, Sebastian just happened to land into the Red Bull at the right time.

So tell me how can Vettel legitimately be number 8 on the list when there are at the very least two other driver on the current grid deemed to be better F1 drivers than he is yet appear lower. Because he beat them in a car that was far superior over the last two years than any other car on the grid? It can't be a Vettel era if he isn't even the best driver currently racing. How can that make sense to anyone.

Have to agree with mnmracer on this one. I don't quite understand the indirect disrespect that Webber is receiving in these Vettel bashing arguments. By claiming that Vettel is really just a good midfield driver, you are essentially saying Webber is an average to below-average midfield driver as it has been abundantly clear that Vettel has had a comfortable edge over Webber (as much as it pains me to admit it) over the 09-011 seasons. And anyone with any reasonable opinion of driver talent would have to rate Webber right towards the pointy end of the midfield drivers (just below the elite drivers). Thus, you would have to rate Vettel in the top 5 drivers easily, top 3 IMO.

Can someone explain to me what they think Alonso could have done in the RB7? Would he have lapped the entire field? Would Hamilton have set pole position at every single race of the season? I'll tell you what they most likely would have done - win between 9 and 13 races and set between 14 and 17 poles.

Edit: I do rate Alonso and Hamilton higher than Vettel, but not by much (Hamilton is a bit dubious given his recent brain fades)

Nobody is saying he is a good midfield driver. He is a top driver.

But if Alonso and Hamilton are better, and are active F1 drivers, how can it be a Vettel era, and not a Red Bull 'unbelievable' car era. And Vettel didn't even assemble the Red Bull team to build the car, Coultard did much of that work for him by convincing Newey to haule ass from Mclaren.

[mnmracer]

So you're already agreeing that you were wrong in stating that any driver could have done what Vettel did.
Thank you.

The first problem comes from that you consider your own view "everyone's view".
YOU don't consider Vettel to be equal or better than Hamilton and Alonso. Which is your right, but it's a little presumptuous to consider your own opinion to be the industry standard.
But if we are to judge a driver's skill by their popularity, than Narain Karthikeyan would have made this list, so let's try and be a little less subjective.

So, in an attempt to move away from such a subjective view, I ask you again, what can be somewhat objectively considered the difference between Jim Clark, Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio and Sebastian Vettel? For instance, did you know that Juan Manuel Fangio has has never finished on a Grand Prix podium if he didn’t start from the first two rows? Did you know that Ayrton Senna only won two races from below 4th grid position?

So, setting aside all the myths (the greats don't need to start in the front to win), all the double standards (Clark winning in a Colin Chapman car is driver skill, Vettel winning in a Newey car is the designer's skill), what is the difference?

[Websta]

If you will only consider a period of time to be a "[insert driver] era" if they dominate, as you should, when will we ever see an [insert driver] era where the performance of the car was not one of the major reasons why (in modern F1) ? Fernando Alonso may well win this year's title, but the car performance has not been there and so he has been far from dominating, so I would not call it an 'Alonso era'. So you surely could refer to the era as "the RBR era", and that is how I actually tend to refer to it, but I think you can be equally correct in calling it "the Vettel era" and to say that you couldn't is diminishing the remarkable consistency, race craft (more recently) and one-lap speed/ability to extract maximum performance, and how he has outperformed a very quick team mate over the last few seasons. I don't think you can consider this performance to be anything less than that of a top driver at the height of their game. No driver will dominate without a dominating car, it's as simple as that, but no average driver will dominate in a dominating car either.

[JimClarkFan]

So you're already agreeing that you were wrong in stating that any driver could have done what Vettel did.
Thank you.

The first problem comes from that you consider your own view "everyone's view".
YOU don't consider Vettel to be equal or better than Hamilton and Alonso. Which is your right, but it's a little presumptuous to consider your own opinion to be the industry standard.
But if we are to judge a driver's skill by their popularity, than Narain Karthikeyan would have made this list, so let's try and be a little less subjective.

So, in an attempt to move away from such a subjective view, I ask you again, what can be somewhat objectively considered the difference between Jim Clark, Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio and Sebastian Vettel? For instance, did you know that Juan Manuel Fangio has has never finished on a Grand Prix podium if he didn’t start from the first two rows? Did you know that Ayrton Senna only won two races from below 4th grid position?

So, setting aside all the myths (the greats don't need to start in the front to win), all the double standards (Clark winning in a Colin Chapman car is driver skill, Vettel winning in a Newey car is the designer's skill), what is the difference?

Did I say a vit petrov, or a b senna could do what vettel did? No, I first said Vettel was a ''top 5 driver for sure,'' maybe even top 3 and then I asked ;

''The question you have to ask yourself is could any other driver on the grid do what Vettel did in 2010 or 2011? - the answer is a fairly unambiguous yes.''

I then go on to say in the next post that Alo and Ham I consider better in the next post.

So ineffect you are using your own misunderstanding to point score. I suggest a revision of everything I've said.



With regard to the rest of your post. The difference between Clark and Vettel is that even though both had the best car, Clark was indisputedly the best F1 driver at that time...EVERYONE SAYS IT, observers, colleges and competitors alike. Vettel on the other hand is not considered a top driver by anybody that I know of - Get it?

But the subjective opinions might not be enough for you as you seem to like the statistics even though it tells a one sided story.

[JimClarkFan]

If you will only consider a period of time to be a "[insert driver] era" if they dominate, as you should, when will we ever see an [insert driver] era where the performance of the car was not one of the major reasons why (in modern F1) ? Fernando Alonso may well win this year's title, but the car performance has not been there and so he has been far from dominating, so I would not call it an 'Alonso era'. So you surely could refer to the era as "the RBR era", and that is how I actually tend to refer to it, but I think you can be equally correct in calling it "the Vettel era" and to say that you couldn't is diminishing the remarkable consistency, race craft (more recently) and one-lap speed/ability to extract maximum performance, and how he has outperformed a very quick team mate over the last few seasons. I don't think you can consider this performance to be anything less than that of a top driver at the height of their game. No driver will dominate without a dominating car, it's as simple as that, but no average driver will dominate in a dominating car either.

This is kind of what I'm saying. Stick a Ham or Alonso in the RBR car and you also have them dominating as well. Therefore I don't think it correct to say it is a 'Vettel' era. Statistically that may be correct, but in reality he isn't even the best driver by almost everyones subjective measure.

[mnmracer]

So you're already agreeing that you were wrong in stating that any driver could have done what Vettel did.
Thank you.

The first problem comes from that you consider your own view "everyone's view".
YOU don't consider Vettel to be equal or better than Hamilton and Alonso. Which is your right, but it's a little presumptuous to consider your own opinion to be the industry standard.
But if we are to judge a driver's skill by their popularity, than Narain Karthikeyan would have made this list, so let's try and be a little less subjective.

So, in an attempt to move away from such a subjective view, I ask you again, what can be somewhat objectively considered the difference between Jim Clark, Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio and Sebastian Vettel? For instance, did you know that Juan Manuel Fangio has has never finished on a Grand Prix podium if he didn’t start from the first two rows? Did you know that Ayrton Senna only won two races from below 4th grid position?

So, setting aside all the myths (the greats don't need to start in the front to win), all the double standards (Clark winning in a Colin Chapman car is driver skill, Vettel winning in a Newey car is the designer's skill), what is the difference?

Did I say a vit petrov, or a b senna could do what vettel did? No, I first said Vettel was a ''top 5 driver for sure,'' maybe even top 3 and then I asked ;

''The question you have to ask yourself is could any other driver on the grid do what Vettel did in 2010 or 2011? - the answer is a fairly unambiguous yes.''

I then go on to say in the next post that Alo and Ham I consider better in the next post.

So ineffect you are using your own misunderstanding to point score. I suggest a revision of everything I've said.

Let's just call your wording ambiguous.

Speaking of which, do you know the meaning of unambiguous? Let me help you:
"Not open to more than one interpretation."

With regard to the rest of your post. The difference between Clark and Vettel is that even though both had the best car, Clark was indisputedly the best F1 driver at that time...EVERYONE SAYS IT, observers, colleges and competitors alike. Vettel on the other hand is not considered a top driver by anybody that I know of - Get it?

But the subjective opinions might not be enough for you as you seem to like the statistics even though it tells a one sided story.

So there is no objective difference to mention between the two? None whatsoever?
There is more to objectivity then statistics, i.e. comparing circumstances, comparing what they do, comparing what happened around them. But aparently you are only interested in opinions, and you can't even get those right.

[mnmracer]

This is kind of what I'm saying. Stick a Ham or Alonso in the RBR car and you also have them dominating as well. Therefore I don't think it correct to say it is a 'Vettel' era. Statistically that may be correct, but in reality he isn't even the best driver by almost everyones subjective measure.

Keep telling yourself that often enough, and I'm sure it will become reality on your mind