How Good is Sebastian Vettel?

[Lewywo4]

If Vettels' drive was poor, then so was Buttons' in Canada last year. After all he got a penalty and benefitted from 2 SC's, just as Vettel did today. OK, he won, but he didn't start from last position.

Jenson did receive a penalty, but did benefit as you say not from just 2 safety cars, but instead 5 safety cars.

 

[RasputinLives]

what made it sweet was Vettel spinning at the end showing why Vettel is overrated especially if only more occasions like that happen to Seb you feel he would crack or do a silly move and crash

Now you're really clutching at straws. Seb spent the whole season with Jenson closing him down as the race came to an end and on all but this one occasion (when I might add his lead had been destroyed by a safety car and not the speed of another driver) he was in complete control.

You can't pick one incident and ignore all the other similar situations just to suit your liking on how to rate a driver its a bit like saying Kovi would have been world champion in 2008 if we'd had similar situations to Hungary that year for the entire season or that Senna wouldn't have got more wins because he'd have constantly been crashing into Prost if he'd have been taken off the pole more often.

The one thing Vettel has shown he is amazing at is judging and holding a lead even with someone quicker closing him down. I've never seen a driver be able to judge a rivals pace so well when he was being chased.

But hey one mistake in one Grand Prix means he's over-rated and likely to crack. I saw Alonso hit the wall at Monaco in a practice session once, must mean he's rubbish, if only the situation happened more.

 

[siffert_fan]

To judge Vettel's ability, all you have to do is look at the difference he made in his one year at STR. The year prior to his arrival, the team scored a massive 8 points. Seb comes on board and scores 35 (!) points himself, outscoring his teammate by over 4 to 1 and gaining a victory as well. Seb moves to RB, and STR scores 8 points that year.

When Alonso was at Minardi, the two highest finishes for the team were by Marquez, not FA, although neither scored any points.

 

[Bill Boddy]

Vettel did have the advantage of driving a car that was basically designed by Adrian Newey. It bore no relationship to the one driven by the Minardi drivers.

 

[RasputinLives]

Vettel did have the advantage of driving a car that was basically designed by Adrian Newey. It bore no relationship to the one driven by the Minardi drivers.

Yes but the point still counts about outscoring his Team-mate 4 to 1. As much as he got panned Sebastian Bourdais has shown he is a very good driver and with his experience and the financial backing he had it would have been easy for Vettel to be overwrought but instead he showed him up and Bourdais left F1 with his tail between his legs.

Also the comparrision was made with the drivers in the team the following year - not the when the team were Minardi - they too had the benifit of driving an Adrian Newy designed car and they came nowhere near the level Vettel did.

 

[Bushi]

You know, Webber has beaten all of his teammates until one german chap came onboard.
Just saying....

 

[ExtremeNinja]

So he is better than Webber and, by default, also Webber's ex-teammates - but just how good is Sebastian Vettel?

 

[The Artist.....]

Well, using ExtremeNinja 's logic,

Sebastian Vettel is better than the following drivers:
Mark Webber, who was better than Nico Rosberg, David Coulthard, Nick Heidfeld, Antonio Pizzonia, Calvin Christian Klien, Justin Wilson, Alex Yoong and Anthony Davidson

Now, Nico Rosberg was also faster than the following drivers, so this means that Vettel must be better than them as well:
Michael Schumacher, Kazuki Nakajima, Alex Wurz

Now, Michael Schumacher provides a boon, as he was better than Barrichello, Massa, Irvine, Verstappen,Nelson Piquet, Patrese, Brundle. Furthermore, going back to the Webber thread, Heidfeld scored more points than Raikkonen, so Heidfeld must be better than Raikkonen as well (Which means also better than Montoya and de la Rosa) de la Rosa is also faster than Karthikeyan, so he can go on the list too (although that's not really a surprise)

Furthermore, Raikonnen was faster than Fisichella whilst at Ferrari, so that means that since Fisichella was faster than Button whilst at Benetton, that Raikkonen (and therefore Vettel) must also be better than Button; Button beat Hamilton (who also beat Alonso in 2007) in 2011, so that puts Vettel ahead of all three of them. Fisichella and Hamilton both beat Kovalainen, so that puts Vettel above Kovi as well. Furthermore, Raikkonen has been better than Grosjean, so there's another scalp. Kovi has also been faster than Petrov all this season...

Since we've got Button and Schumacher in the mix, they were both better than Barrichello, who was better than Maldonado in 2011, so Maldonado goes in (And Maldo was better than Bruno Senna this year, so he can go in as well!) Going down to GP2 (Where due to the fact that cars are identical, we can compare across teams), Perez was beaten by Maldonado, and Perez has been generally the faster of the 2 Saubers this season, so that adds Perez and Kobayashi to the list;

Nico Hulkenberg also scored fewer points than Rubens whilst at Williams in 2010, so that adds the Hulk to the list, and also by default di Resta (Who has been slower than the Hulk for most of this season).

Jarno Trulli also needs considering, as he was beaten over the course of a season by Jenson Button, but Trulli also beat Timo Glock over the course of a season at Toyota. - and Glock is currently faster than Pic.


So, of the current grid, Vettel MUST be better than:
Webber
Rosberg
de la Rosa
Karthikeyan
Massa,
Raikkonen
Schumacher
Button
Hamilton
Alonso
Kovalainen
Petrov
Grosjean
Maldonado
Bruno Senna
Nico Hulkenberg
Paul di Resta
Glock
Pic
Perez
Kobayashi

So, the only 2 drivers on the current grid that I can't PROVE that Vettel MUST be better than are Vergne and Ricciardo

Of course, I might just be missing the point that it might depend on the car/driver/season combination.....

 

[Fenderman]

Fantastic piece of work The Artist..... Methinks, your last remark is indeed the truth of the matter.

This debate reminds me of the search for the Higgs Boson. It now transpires that after all of the intriguing science that went on in the lead up to, and gone on since, its "discovery" in July that the results, disturbingly, have not unleashed the new science that the boffins were hoping would take them away from "the standard model"...

http://www.newscientist.com/article...-to-be-maddeningly-wellbehaved.html?full=true​

... which means that they now want a bigger, better research tool ...

http://www.newscientist.com/article...o-think-beyond-the-large-hadron-collider.html​

Maybe that's what you need to get to the bottom of the Just "how good is Sebastian Vettel?" question. Perhaps a Cray computer to crunch the numbers might be the ticket.

 

[Hamberg]

The Artist..... That was a beautiful read

If that competition was for best post that would win hands down!

 

[gethinceri]

You don't need to prove he is better than Vergne and Ricciardo The Artist....., we all know they're shit.

 

[teabagyokel]

The Artist..... - Of course you can!

Ricciardo had one race as team-mate to Karthikeyan in 2011, and lost, so therefore he is worse than Karthikeyan. He's also been generally faster than Vergne this year so that's the lot.

Vettel is the best driver on the grid. QED.

 

[RasputinLives]

So there you go undisputable evidence that Sebastian Vettel is the best driver on the grid.

As he's won the last two world championships and looking like he might get a third I'm not sure why thats such a surprise.

 

[RasputinLives]

Oh and missed off the list was that Bruno Senna was beaten by Sakon Yamamoto...........it doesn't prove anything about Sebastian Vettel I just like to remind everyone as often as I can.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

The Artist.....

I think you will find that logic belongs to Bushi, rather than myself. your post was a cracking read, though.

 

[jez101]

Top post The Artist..... - I built a spreadsheet a few years ago that compared past and current drivers along those lines using the difference in qualifying to add "how much" x beat y by. I posted Webber v last year http://cliptheapex.com/threads/sebastian-vettel.2464/#post-42506

 

[RasputinLives]

All this team mate talk has got me thinking and if you exclude the rookies (vergne and pic) then their are only two drivers who have not been beaten over the course of a season by their team mate. Sebastian Vettel and Kamui Kobayashi.

Kamui has two races and an 8 point gap to keep that record and it does look like Jean Eric Vergne can add himself to the list next year but once again its another impressive stat to show how good Vettel is.

 

[Il_leone]

You know, Webber has beaten all of his teammates until one german chap came onboard.
Just saying....

Webber did not beat DC in 2007 and he was losing against Heidfled before Nick's bike accident ended up being a permanent end to his stay at Williams

 

[landogeorgelewis1]

I think we've all now lost words to describe just how good Vettel is.

 

[Quintessentially]

If he wins the championship greatest thing since fried mars bars, if he doesn't - bottle job.