Ferrari, and its mother company, Fiat Chrysler, have announced changes at the lead of the company to replace CEO Sergio Marchionne, after the company was informed he will be unable to return to work.
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C'mon. Haven't you forget the end of 2007? Or 2011 (5 crashes with Massa in one year)?
Even the start of this season -- he wasn't always on top of the situation.
2007? It was his rookie year! Tough crowd in here!
2011, yeah - he and Massa did seem to have a bit of a thing for each other that year. Wasn't that the "family issues" year? It was certainly the year he underperformed compared to Button.
Anyway, if Vettel isn't performing then it's up to the team to figure out why and then figure out how to help him perform. Ferrari need to figure out what makes Vettel happy (other than winning, obviously) and get him in his "happy place". If, as suggested by others, that's a change of race engineer then so be it.
It's rather telling that Vettel is being seen around his old mates in RedBull rather a lot recently. That should be telling Ferrari that they have a problem. Sure, they're Ferrari and "everyone wants to drive for Ferrari" but that obviously isn't enough for Vettel at the moment.
Of course, if the team hadn't apparently messed up with the upgrade earlier in the year, we could all be talking about when Vettel takes his 5th title rather than Hamilton. The team have to stand up and hold themselves to account somehow.
If you are more fortunate than others, build a larger table not a taller fence.
2007? It was his rookie year! Tough crowd in here!
True, but I vividly remember my surprise when Hamilton who was tremendously consistent (and that's compared to Alonso) botched up two races in a row. It's just that we all make mistakes under pressure.
2011, yeah - he and Massa did seem to have a bit of a thing for each other that year. Wasn't that the "family issues" year? It was certainly the year he underperformed compared to Button.
Yes, and I think what really played into Button's hand was that he was not "expected" to beat Hamilton. And he used this situation to be in a comfortable place mentally.
Anyway, if Vettel isn't performing then it's up to the team to figure out why and then figure out how to help him perform. Ferrari need to figure out what makes Vettel happy (other than winning, obviously) and get him in his "happy place". If, as suggested by others, that's a change of race engineer then so be it.
It's rather telling that Vettel is being seen around his old mates in RedBull rather a lot recently. That should be telling Ferrari that they have a problem. Sure, they're Ferrari and "everyone wants to drive for Ferrari" but that obviously isn't enough for Vettel at the moment.
Of course, if the team hadn't apparently messed up with the upgrade earlier in the year, we could all be talking about when Vettel takes his 5th title rather than Hamilton. The team have to stand up and hold themselves to account somehow.
Anyway, if Vettel isn't performing then it's up to the team to figure out why and then figure out how to help him perform. Ferrari need to figure out what makes Vettel happy (other than winning, obviously) and get him in his "happy place". If, as suggested by others, that's a change of race engineer then so be it.
It's rather telling that Vettel is being seen around his old mates in RedBull rather a lot recently. That should be telling Ferrari that they have a problem. Sure, they're Ferrari and "everyone wants to drive for Ferrari" but that obviously isn't enough for Vettel at the moment.
Of course, if the team hadn't apparently messed up with the upgrade earlier in the year, we could all be talking about when Vettel takes his 5th title rather than Hamilton. The team have to stand up and hold themselves to account somehow.
To get Vettel into his happy place, you would need more than a race engineer, you'd need Adrian Newey or the whole Mercedes team.
He needs a car that can easily get pole position, pull away at a rapid pace in the first ten laps or so, thus allowing him and the team to manage the race from an advantageous position.
Just like Felipe Massa or vintage Kimi. Vettel is fast, but he is not a warrior.
Anyway, if Vettel isn't performing then it's up to the team to figure out why and then figure out how to help him perform. Ferrari need to figure out what makes Vettel happy (other than winning, obviously) and get him in his "happy place". If, as suggested by others, that's a change of race engineer then so be it.
It's rather telling that Vettel is being seen around his old mates in RedBull rather a lot recently. That should be telling Ferrari that they have a problem. Sure, they're Ferrari and "everyone wants to drive for Ferrari" but that obviously isn't enough for Vettel at the moment.
Of course, if the team hadn't apparently messed up with the upgrade earlier in the year, we could all be talking about when Vettel takes his 5th title rather than Hamilton. The team have to stand up and hold themselves to account somehow.
To get Vettel into his happy place, you would need more than a race engineer, you'd need Adrian Newey or the whole Mercedes team.
He needs a car that can easily get pole position, pull away at a rapid pace in the first ten laps or so, thus allowing him and the team to manage the race from an advantageous position.
Just like Felipe Massa or vintage Kimi. Vettel is fast, but he is not a warrior.
Actually he's too much of a warrior as a few races this year have shown...
Every driver will like to manage the race from 1st place, but I think Vettel has shown many times that he can fight for positions too. So I've absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Quite ignorant.
Vettel needs a team that he can trust, so he can stop trying to run the team from the cockpit.
People that say that Vettel can't fight in a non-dominant car apparently haven't seen 2010 or 2012. Two years where Vettel had a great, but far from dominant car, and yet he stood up to the pressure and won the championship both years.
Should he be so sensitive to team operations? No, he shouldn't. Should Ferrari's operation improve? Yes it should. Will improving Ferrari's operation improve Vettel's performance? Definitely. I mean, look at what happened recently. It took them 4 races to figure out that the upgrades they made on the car were making it slower. That's the sort of thing that has been destroying Vettel's confidence in Ferrari over the year. He takes risks because he feels he has to compensate for it.
Just like Felipe Massa or vintage Kimi. Vettel is fast, but he is not a warrior.
Errrrrrrr… what? I know he has made some mistakes fighting against Lewis, for example. But man, he has done many great overtakes recovering positions. The myth of Vettel being incapable of overtaking or recovering positions is done, for a long time. He never gives up. Last example was USA, having the championship almost lost and with (yet) another mistake, he could have given up and just make a mediocre race. Instead of this he fighted back until he overtook Bottas, which was the maximum he could do.
Vettel needs a team that he can trust, so he can stop trying to run the team from the cockpit.
People that say that Vettel can't fight in a non-dominant car apparently haven't seen 2010 or 2012. Two years where Vettel had a great, but far from dominant car, and yet he stood up to the pressure and won the championship both years.
Should he be so sensitive to team operations? No, he shouldn't. Should Ferrari's operation improve? Yes it should. Will improving Ferrari's operation improve Vettel's performance? Definitely. I mean, look at what happened recently. It took them 4 races to figure out that the upgrades they made on the car were making it slower. That's the sort of thing that has been destroying Vettel's confidence in Ferrari over the year. He takes risks because he feels he has to compensate for it.
So all the crashes and mistakes from Vettel's side is due to failure of ferrari team's operation?
I think the message is another: Other drivers would probably face the same problems if the circumstances where the same AND that it's part of the personality. Some other drivers simply would not care, so they would not run in to mistakes but they could face other problems because of not caring. The message is: you cant't really compare drivers and their situations. It's pretty clear for me. But misinterpreting on purpose is the new sport of mankind, I think.
I can't remember the last top 6 driver that he attempted to overtake and not crash with. The others are a walk in the park, they almost concede without a fight when a mercedes or ferrari approaches as they know they'd only lose time.
Vettel is a great qualifier, hard worker and intelligent, but lacks Alonso's race craft and resilience and Hamiltons magic qualy laps.
He needs a car that can easily get pole position, pull away at a rapid pace in the first ten laps or so, thus allowing him and the team to manage the race from an advantageous position.
I think the message is another: Other drivers would probably face the same problems if the circumstances where the same AND that it's part of the personality. Some other drivers simply would not care, so they would not run in to mistakes but they could face other problems because of not caring. The message is: you cant't really compare drivers and their situations. It's pretty clear for me. But misinterpreting on purpose is the new sport of mankind, I think.
If the trophy or characteristics of F1 don't change depending on the winning driver (and other drivers) personal circumstances, then drivers and their situations can be compared.
He needs a car that can easily get pole position, pull away at a rapid pace in the first ten laps or so, thus allowing him and the team to manage the race from an advantageous position.
Doesn't every driver?
Did you like... Not see Kimi win in Austin? Are we gonna pretend he was on pole and had a car that was a clear half second a lap faster?
He needs a car that can easily get pole position, pull away at a rapid pace in the first ten laps or so, thus allowing him and the team to manage the race from an advantageous position.
Doesn't every driver?
Did you like... Not see Kimi win in Austin? Are we gonna pretend he was on pole and had a car that was a clear half second a lap faster?
So..? Your point being? If you ask Kimi what his choice would be, would he not tell you to be on pole in a dominantly fast car?
I've held off posting in this topic for a while now, but I am glad people have moved on from simply bashing Vettel.
I am not a fan of Vettel. Yes, he has made many mistakes this year. Certainly compared to Hamilton he has, but Hamilton has been in a very very good position AND environment these last few years. It hasn't always been like that, mind you. I remember quite well when I was admiring Button and his 'bubble' at McLaren compared to Lewis becoming the outsider.
I see certain similarities with Vettel too. I think the biggest advantage Hamilton enjoys and biggest factor Ferrari lacks is Toto Wolff. I got to hand it to him, but what he has built up at the Mercedes team is extraordinary. One might criticize him/Mercedes for how things developed during the Rosberg-Hamilton years, but in such times, he displayed 'strength' in making the hard decisions. He threatened severe punishment to the point they'd sit out a driver if they can't race together and he has taken the liberty to change around the engineers when rivalry and hostility was building. In other words, time and time again, Mercedes has shown to be very much in control over what happens at their team. Yes, mistakes have been made, but you see their people come out and taking responsibility for them.
Meanwhile, Ferrari have built an exceptional car, but I do sometimes think the team is running like a loose canon. Perhaps I am extrapolating things here, but watching Vettel and listening to his radio messages, one seems to get the impression that Vettel not only has to drive the car, he also has to battle his team and lead them.
I remember back to Monza 2017 when Ferrari suffered a crushing loss to Mercedes on their home turf. Vettel somehow made it to the podium and while Arrivabene was the one who was publicly criticizing the team, Vettel had a very energetic speech on the podium, building up the team. There are numerous examples this year too where I feel the team acted against their own best interests and perhaps set in motion events that later turned to costly driver mistakes. One of the more memorable ones was at Hockenheim, one of the defining races of the season.
So Vettel is leading the race in a comfortable position while Hamilton is coming through the field from 14th position. In order to control the pace and protect his stint, they pit Kimi to bring him in as a road-block in front of Hamilton. Fair game. But then later they pit Vettel for his next stint and because of the later stop, he ends up being behind Kimi. Obviously, dirty air and all, Vettel soon gets stuck behind Kimi and what follows are repeated team-radio messages where Vettel is getting worked-up about his tires increased temperature from following Kimi and that this was slowly compromizing his stint and race. It took more than a couple of laps for Ferrari to get on the radio to Kimi and tell him to move aside. What in gods-name were Ferrari doing or thinking? They played the perfect chess game so far, using Kimi as a pawn against Hamilton, but then forgot to move the pawn out of the way for the driver who was supposed to win the race unchallenged.
This of course led to Hamilton making up more time vs. the leaders and one could also argue that it also put Vettels tires in a worse state than what they could have been when the shower came. Now, Vettel made that mistake that crashed him out yes - but one really has to wonder what was going on before that. Simply listening to those messages, one doesn't get the impression of a stable and working environment...
There other instances too that IMO put a question mark over what has been going on behind the scenes. At Monza, Kimi had the tow in qualifying and I severely question why Vettel felt the need to battle his team-mate in the first 4 corners of the race. Do they not plan these things before the race? The 1-2 was crucial. It just seems absolutely stupid to see both drivers battling each other on the first few corners that then led to subsequent mistakes.
Vettel may not be many things, but I do think he is clearly one of the most intelligent. Time and time again he shows how well he knows the rules (Australia 2018 comes to mind with the VSC timing). I wouldn't put it past him to have a very clear mind about what is happening around him during the race. Meanwhile, Hamilton doesn't need to, because he has full confidence in his team (most of the time). Surely he is smart enough to have felt the need to battle for that position the first few corners. But why? What has been going on behind the scenes at Ferrari?
So yes, Vettel has made his mistakes that he contributed to. But my point is, Vettel seems to be having to do more work at Ferrari than Hamilton has. Perhaps when criticizing Vettel and his mistakes, there's more to things than simply looking at those incidents in complete isolation. Hamilton has a very strong team behind him. I'd argue Vettel does not and not having that while feeling the pressure of the upper management to perform and win, frustrations are building and this is leading to mistakes. Costly mistakes.
It's always a team-sport. A team-sport means optimizing each and every component too. But most importantly, working together, building trust. That trust seems to have gone missing...
Not for nothing, Rosberg's Championship is the only thing that lends credibility to Hamilton's recent success. Otherwise, he'd just be the guy who's had the best car. — bhall II #Team44 supporter
