Who will Win Autosport Driver Of The Year 2012??

[LionKing]

Narain incident he brought on to himself. Alternator i can buy.

I don't want restart the same discussion again again but Narain made a mistake and got the penalty for it.

What your saying is like Lewis brought Maldonado or Grosjean incidents on to himself. No....

[mnmracer]

I have yet to see someone substantiate where Vettel lost all those points that Alonso would have gotten.

Well that's very simple....where his team mate beat him or out-qualified him. Seemed to happen on the regular the first half of the season.

Saw that coming, but part of me hoped you'd know better.

Are you aware of the fact that, including this year, Vettel outqualified Webber, 43:12 (16+13+14:3+6+3), or 72.9% (fyi, 54:21 still makes 72%).
Are you aware of the fact that prior to 2012, Alonso outqualified Massa 30:8 (15+15:4+4), or 73.3%.

Now then, I do not know if you are a statistician, but most will agree that since Vettel has shown 3 years back-to-back-to-back to be more than a match for Webber in quali, so when Vettel still outperforms Webber in the races for all bar 3, it's pretty save to assume there were some tacticall decissions in qualifying rather than the 3-year trend is suddenly being broken. After all, there have never been points awarded on Saturday.

So, substract the three races that Massa in actuality outperformed Alonso on Sunday this year, and we're back at square one

I am interesting in your answer though: what is your basis to suggest Alonso would have outqualified Webber (more often)? Given Alonso's history with strong qualifying team-mates, and given Webber's team-mate qualifying stats are a step up yet from Trulli, there is little to suggest he would easily come out on top.

Wow, the amount of close-mindedness going around here is astonishing.

You are a Vettel fan, we get it. It's not close-mindedness when you base opinions on facts.

What people are saying is that Vettel drove a superior car to Alonso. This is a fact.
What is astonishing is some people denying this, and making out as though Vettel manhandled his car to the title.

What people are saying is that Vettel drove a superior car to Alonso. This is a fact.
What people are implying (here at least) is that Vettel almost always drove a superior car to Alonso. This is an unfact. (not to be confused with a funfact, such as that for all the claims that the Ferrari was a dog of a car, they are almost as close to Red Bull in the WCC than Red Bull was to Brawn in 2009).

I think Hamilton showed what good superiority is in a car that doesn't make it to the finish line
I think Hamilton's reliability record is a far bigger, much less subjective fact.

ANYWAY, now that we have gotten those pesky double standards cleared up, try again

[Drpesq]

Thanks to F1Fanatic for providing the stats,

Numbers don't lie. The exciting driver's championship we witnessed up to round 15 was the result of a clear vaccum at the top of the pyramid. Which is to say that you literally had to tune in to see who would win. Something I have seldom seen in my 12 years as an F1 fan. Kudos to the FIA and rules committee for leveling the playing field.

But alas, the might of Newey intervened from Singapore on. The RB8 regained what Mark Donahue called an 'unfair advantage'. And from that point on, such was the advantage of Vettel's car that the championship was his to loose.

If we're honest with ourselves in the last 5 races of the season, the question changed from who would win, to lets see by how much Vettel will take pole, and whether someone or something could prevent him from leading from green light to checkers.

Not so many people were asking these questions in the first half of the season. Combine that with the fact that no real criticism has been directed at Vettel for his level of driving in the first 13-14 race and what is your conclusion? The fast and reasonably competitive RB8, well driven by Vettel was simply not a good enough pairing to win the championship. Or put another way...he needs a great car, not merely a good one, to win.

Of course the driver of the year award should go to Fernando. Such a display of determination and consistently high performance is rare in sport and in life.

DRP

[hollus]

I think the Autosport ratings say it all really....

The ASMUS ratings (which i dont care about)...

Welcome to the globalized world of the 21st century.
Are you here to actually have a reasoned discussion, to praise your hero, or to impose your opinion?
I'll make the same question I've made many times, not expecting an answer, really... What made you find F1technical in the first place, and what keeps you coming back?
/end rhetoric.
/end rant.

[FoxHound]

@MnM

What are you comparing? I said Webber in relation to Vettel in the first half of the Season and he was leading Vettel in terms of qualifying by Britain. And still holding a points lead heading to Belgium.



Webber aus
Webber Mal
Webber China
Vet Bah
Vet Spa
Webber Mon
Vet Can
Vet Eur
Webber Brit

Er Lionking..... just read the above will you...

Sorry to say it what your wrote is nonsense:
.........In what parallel universe, Webber was managing to extract more from a non dominant car?

The gap to Alonso for Webber was just 13 points after leaving Silverstone...Vettel had more than double this deficit, 29.
The Red Bull was not the best car all the time, but it was the best car most of the time.
And as victors are rewarded with a bigger points advantage than those who finish lower it makes sense to say the car that wins the most is the best to have, and the easier to shine in.
By Britiain, Webber had 2 victories to his name matching Alonso. Vettel had 1. And Massa had none.

So what can we deduce of the the cars prior to the rampant second half Red Bull had?
They where evenly matched and Alonso was leading.

It took Vettel's car to become clearly better for him to get back ahead of Alonso.

[LionKing]

Numbers don't lie. The exciting driver's championship we witnessed up to round 15 was the result of a clear vaccum at the top of the pyramid. Which is to say that you literally had to tune in to see who would win. Something I have seldom seen in my 12 years as an F1 fan. Kudos to the FIA and rules committee for leveling the playing field.

But alas, the might of Newey intervened from Singapore on. The RB8 regained what Mark Donahue called an 'unfair advantage'. And from that point on, such was the advantage of Vettel's car that the championship was his to loose.

The second half of the season:
HUNGARY: Lewis Wins
SPA: Button wins
MONZA: Lewis wins
SINGAPORE: Lewis retires from lead with gearbox issue.
SUZUKA: Vettel wins
KOREA: Vettel wins
INDIA: Vettel wins
ABU DHABI: Lewis retires from lead
USA: Lewis wins
BRAZIL: Button wins

McLaren 5 wins and 2 retirements from the lead. Red Bull 4 wins with one of them being inherited in Singapore after Lewis DNF. "Such an advantage such was the advantage of Vettel's car that the championship was his to loose." Indeed

Btw, in the same period McLaren got 6 poles to 4 for RBR...

[/quote]

[FoxHound]

How many points did McLaren lose due to reliability again?

Hundreds.....

[Gerhard Berger]

True fans will remember this year as an epic showdown between two of the best drivers of this era, one in a generally faster but unreliable car, the other in a competitive and bulletproof car. And they will remember the third driver of that era to have fought valiantly despite the most unreliable car of them all.

What history you decide to make up, is one for the fairy tale books.

You do realise that history (not only related to F1, but all walks of life) is quite often down to the perception of individuals?

If you want to class a car that broke down in 10% of the races and 0% of the qualifying sessions as "unreliable" and a car that broke down in 0% of the races and 5% of the qualifying sessions as bullet proof then fair enough. But don't go around telling other people that their perception of the season is a fairy tale.

[JimClarkFan]

Contrary to what some are saying above we did learn something about Vettel this year. In the first part of the season, when Red Bull were struggling it was Webber who was shining on outright pace. Once Red Bull got the rear of the car planted it was Vettel who started to shine.

There is little point comparing Vettels qualifying performance from last season with that of this years, because it is fairly clear that the cars were much different.

The fairly obvious conclusion (at least to my mind) is that Vettel likes a planted rear end, he is less adaptable than Webber who can bully a car a bit more than Vettel and can better cope with instability. However once Vettel is comfortable and has the car underneath him which he likes, he is generally faster than Webber.

[Gerhard Berger]

Wow, the amount of close-mindedness going around here is astonishing.
Unwilling to accept any recognition for Vettel, and then going as far as to alike Alonso to Senna 93 and Schumi 97.

Neither Senna nor Schumi had a far superior reliability to the Williams'.
either Senna nor Schumi had a car with much better race pace than the Williams'.
Neither Senna nor Schumi had their team mate outperform them when it was crunch time.
And Senna and Schumi were facing competition that was always much faster; they were not facing a team that was the best 5 times out of 20 races, with another team bettering them in most other races.

At the end of the year, people were asking about neither Irvine nor Häkkinen/Hill if they would go on to give Schumi or Senna a run for their money next year.

Also, it is relatively easy to substantiate where Schumi and Senna would have done better than the Williams drivers in those years.
Aside from all the "Alonso would have been champion in Valencia in the Red Bull" hype, I have yet to see someone substantiate where Vettel lost all those points that Alonso would have gotten.

I'm not saying the seasons are exact replicas of eachother or the opponents were the same. I'm saying the level of performance that Alonso produced over the course of this season was similar to that of Schumacher in 97 and Senna in 93.

It's not putting down Vettel's performance in any way. Vettel also performed admirably this season (though last season i think he was more impressive). What i found most impressive about Vettel is how he didn't give up after Monza. It was the same in 2010 where he did not give up after Korea. It takes great belief and confidence to think you can still win it in those kinds of situations.

[LionKing]

@MnM
What are you comparing? I said Webber in relation to Vettel in the first half of the Season and he was leading Vettel in terms of qualifying by Britain. And still holding a points lead heading to Belgium.

Er Lionking..... just read the above will you...

Sorry to say it what your wrote is nonsense:
.........In what parallel universe, Webber was managing to extract more from a non dominant car?

These are just the qualifying results. F1 is not racing but qualifying session??? At mid season it was 5-5 in qualifying between Webber and Vettel; not that it matters much anyway...

For instance at Australia Webber outqualified Vettel by 0.017 but he was much slower than Vettel in the race. Lewis got pole there but he was slower than Button who won the race.

Apart from 3 or 4 races in whole season Vettel outraced Webber. So even in the beginning Vettel was often beating Webber in races and extracting more from the car.

The gap to Alonso for Webber was just 13 points after leaving Silverstone...Vettel had more than double this deficit, 29.
The Red Bull was not the best car all the time, but it was the best car most of the time.

So what can we deduce of the the cars prior to the rampant second half Red Bull had?
They where evenly matched and Alonso was leading.

Do you realize that the single Vettel alternator DNF would account for more than that difference? It is 32 point swing between Alonso and Vettel...

What we can also deduce is reliability issues especially from the leading the race is very expensive. One such would require a few great results to recover the swing.

[LionKing]

The fairly obvious conclusion (at least to my mind) is that Vettel likes a planted rear end, he is less adaptable than Webber who can bully a car a bit more than Vettel and can better cope with instability. However once Vettel is comfortable and has the car underneath him which he likes, he is generally faster than Webber.

Then why was Webber quite slower in races In Australia, Malaysia, Bahrain, Spain compared to Vettel?

[mnmracer]

So all this big talk, yet no one can substantiate where Alonso would have gotten all those points Vettel lost by not being the best driver.
=D> =D> =D>

That's the sad thing really.
Everyone on their high horse, but they can't substantiate a single thing.

[Gerhard Berger]

So all this big talk, yet no one can substantiate where Alonso would have gotten all those points Vettel lost by not being the best driver.
=D> =D> =D>

That's the sad thing really.
Everyone on their high horse, but they can't substantiate a single thing.

I think it would be impossible to substantiate anything like that.

I can easily claim that Alonso would have beaten his team mate and won the Monaco grand prix, or that he wouldn't have passed Button off the track in Hockenheim etc. but i wouldn't have anything to back it up with.

[JimClarkFan]

So all this big talk, yet no one can substantiate where Alonso would have gotten all those points Vettel lost by not being the best driver.
=D> =D> =D>

That's the sad thing really.
Everyone on their high horse, but they can't substantiate a single thing.

No body has any clue what you are talking about. What do you mean?

Then why was Webber quite slower in races In Australia, Malaysia, Bahrain, Spain compared to Vettel?

So quali is not the best indication of outright pace?