The Power of One

[Mansell4Ever]

Well maybe opening a new discussion would be appropriate as this discussion could go on for ever (at least at my end). The argument against Vettel is a little like what Extreme Ninja said: Red Bull had clearly the best car implying that Vettel's victories were easy. No they were not. What he calls clearly the best car was marginally faster than the McLaren in qualifying and about the same racing speed as both the Mclarens and the Ferraris, sometimes a little less. That gave Vettel the oportunity of fighting for pole position and lead from the front. But as I said we are talking about one or two tenths of a second. Has any of you tried to measure a tenth of a second? The other dominating cars I've mentioned in previous comments were a second, sometimes more, faster than their rivals. Vettel had the tiniest of advantages. That meant he had a very small window of oportunity and he took it. Isn't that what being the best driver is all about. Bear in mind this year Webber finished 6th on the table and in only one race did Red Bull manage a one-two finish. Vettel is the best in the world dominating from pole position, but that is not deemed skilful enough by some peopleeven if every driver out there dreams of geting a pole position and then win from there. That is the whole purpose of racing, being the fastest guy, not counting how many points you can get out of a weekend. Jim Clark did just that and nobody had qualms about it.

About getting just third places and winning the championship, I didn't do the math but my point exactly. Had Alonso been WDC without winning in Brazil and I would still consider Vettel the best driver of the season. But now that you mention it, last year, when Vettel began the championship with a winning streak Alonso came on TV to say that he was fine for the moment because the previous year, the champion made an average of 13.5 points (or something like that) so thirds and fourths would do until the car improved (as always the car). This year when he was being hunted down by Vettel he said he needed to reach 280 points to be champion (what an irony then that Vettel won with 281 points). This is what I do not like about the man, he is not interested in putting a show for the audience, he just wants to do it for his own sake.

As for Massa, I like him a lot. He is not gifted in the way some other drivers are but he tries very hard and in 2007 he was very close and would have been a deserving World Champion. I believe the accident affected him even if the doctors cannot see anything wrong. Hopefully he'll be is full self next year.

I dn't think I understand Oliver's point about Mansell in 1992. If you asked me more often than not Senna was a better driver than Nige, but the beauty of F1 is that human beings change from day to day and on a given day Nigel Mansell drove like he was from another planet. If you are implying Mansell only beat Senna in 92 because of the car (a bit like what you are trying to say with Vettel and Alonso) well you simply cannot tell. The greatness of that year was that Mansell, with clearly the best car, won more races and did more pole positions and led more laps than anybody until then. And if you ask me, he was the best driver that season. Anyway your argument could be twisted around. In 1991 Mansell had a revolutionary car that gave him a lot of problems and he could not finish races. When they were solved, he started a comeback that Senna could only prevent because he had a better engine and the Honda guys found an extra 100 HP or so to give him a late ressurgence. Couldn't Mansell have been the better driver in '91 instead?

As for poor Beloff he was a very good driver and we know that because he competed in other categories. In F1 he drove a very uncompetitive Tyrrel and did a fabulous race in a very wet Monaco but was disqualified. I don't think he would have been considered the best driver of the 1984 season on account of just that.

And finally Extreme Ninja, do not follow the logic of Vettel only started to consistently beat his team mate when the car was good. Because it seems that in Ferrari the oposite happened. Doesn't that mean that if I have a good car, I would be safer hiring Vettel?

 

[ExtremeNinja]

...than Webber? Quite obviously, yes. Than Hamilton or Alonso or even Raikonnen? Possibly, but the jury is out on that one. I think it is safe to say that Vettel would be around the top of most team's shopping list if they were playing at F1 Supermarket Sweep. I don't think it was so much the Ferrari getting better, TBH, as Massa getting better and Alonso being a man under pressure. Over a season I would most certainly prefer to have Vettel over Webber, Alonso over Massa and Hamilton over Button. Of Vettel, Webber, Massa, Alonso, Hamilton and Button, though, I would certainly take Hamilton and Alonso as my first choices if I wanted to flatter a poor car. This subject tends to lead to a sticky end, though, and so I leave you with my own opinion and appraisal.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Schumi quite famously tested the 95 Ferrari and stated he didn't know how Alesi and Berger had won the title.

Now I'm confused, when did Berger and Alesi win the title and wasn't the Ferrari an absolute dog in 96 when Schumacher joined them?

 

[RasputinLives]

I wrote it wrong. Schumi tested the 95 Ferrari and stated he didn't understand how Alesi or Berger had not won title in it. He was saying that he thought the 95 Ferrari was better than his 95 Benneton which brings into question whether Ferrari were really that far behind. Maybe they just had the wrong drivers.

 

[Bill Boddy]

Or maybe Schumacher wanted to boost himself.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Actually I knew that RasputinLives I was just pulling your leg and there maybe some truth in what Bill Boddy says after all if nothing else Schumacher was the master of mind games and both those drivers were moving to his old team for 96....

 

[RasputinLives]

.......where they promptly won nothing

 

[Mansell4Ever]

Good Morning Ninja. It is not a bad choice of team but the only time it happened didn't work. Maybe you can do best tan Ron Dennis, I don't know. Nonetheless, I would definetely go for Vettel to win titles and Hamilton for entertainement. And wished I could have another car to fit Raikkonen. Not that Alonso isn't good enough to be in this team. Its just that his atitude would not help making this a winning team. Unless of course he would be made undisputed number 1 (with a written and signed contract to attest it) in case he would decide to snich on me for doing what everyother team does. And maybe, I would need to have the power to ask of the other driver to crash against a wall...just maybe.

But the choice of Vettel over Alonso I mentioned previously is just the logical conclusion of your statement. To explain it under different names, supose Prost and Senna go kart. They get to the circuit and pick up whatever kart is available and procede to race. Supose Senna wins, at least I would bet he would. Now Prost was famous for his maniac behaviour seting up cars. I read somewhere that when he was in Karts he could be fine tunning the wheel for a couple of hours until he found the perfect wheel span. If he was given that time, and they raced again, maybe Prost would go and win (not sure, Senna was a bit of a maniac also, I should have used Nigel as an example). Yes, supose Nigel would head for the golf course while Prost remained finetuning everything (I think this is a little less than hypothetical assumption). Then, they'd race again and this time Pros wins. Common knowledge says Mansell or Senna are better drivers because he can turn anything into a racing car. But are they? Food for thought.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Good morning. I doubt I could do better than Ron Dennis, Mansell4Ever. I have an entirely different proffession and would be very much under-qualified in this field. As you, I can only comment as an observer and try to be as objective as I can.

I got a bit, well quite, lost in your reply.

To clarify, I think that Vettel, Hamilton and Alonso will all perform well given the best car. In that situation I would choose Hamilton or Vettel other Alonso and neither of those would be for entertainment. It would be for their ability to get the job done and their winning qualities. If I had a crap car then I would want Hamilton and Alonso over Vettel as there is more evidence of what they can do in sub-standard machinery.

In both situations, with different choices, I would choose Vettel over Webber.

That's just me, though. Well, not just me but I don't speak for anyone else.

 

[FB]

Back on topic, I mentioned earlier the effect Clay Regazzoni had on the little Ensign team, Senna had a similar effect at Toleman. Anyone think of other drivers who lifted a tail end team to mid-field or higher?

 

[The Pits]

Whilst not specifically aligned, I would mention Damon Hill.

The immediate thing that springs to mind is Jordan, and the impact that he had there, but, I would also add that he had a strong impact at Williams, even while Prost and Senna were there, Adrian Newey certainly rated him highly.

He also had a strong impact at Arrows, however, I am not sure how much was down to him simply being a higher calibre of driver than the team were used to rather than anything else.

 

[RasputinLives]

Andrea De Cessaris in a Jordan?

 

[Olivier]

Maybe Surtees who brought back Ferrari to the winning circle and if not by his disagreements with the Old Man and particularly with Dragoni (team manager at the time), he would have won at least 2 WDC.

 

[teabagyokel]

I wonder how much of an effect Damon Hill had on making Jordan, briefly, a force.

 

[The Pits]

To quote the OP

Over the years a few drivers appear in F1 who seem to be able to lift a team and drive them to new levels of achievement. These men have the ability to lead a team and raise there, often already significant, abilities and push them to new heights. Their arrival also seems to draw others to the team which maintains the momentum and drives the team on.

I think that there is a subtle distinction here between the drivers who completed the puzzle to someone elses masterplan, and those who created there own.

There is a need to be rather careful with comparisons, as in my opinion, it can sometimes be rather hard to distinguish between a driver leading the team, and a driver lifting the team. The Vettel example is one such point of contention. Did he get to Red Bull, and lead the team in the right direction to be the winning machine that they now are? was he brought in to drive quickly and win stuff? was the success because of him, or in spite of him?

The more I think about it, the more difficult it becomes to be clear on the matter.

Michael Schumacher was a clear driving force at Ferrari. Ross Brawn was also key. At Honda, Jenson Button was instrumental in the move for Ross Brawn, a move which led to title success eventually, would this fit the description? Likewise Vettel at Torro Rosso, the points he scored would no doubt have lifted the team, and had a great effect on motivation, does this fit the description?

And more contention, Lewis is coming in to a Mercedes team that Ross Brawn is now stating he has got to a point that he is happy with the structure and the people, so if they do achieve great things, does this mean it will be Lewis driving the team forward, or simply the boss getting all his ducks in a row?

for what it is worth, I believe that in the modern era, things have moved away from the drivers, and back towards the backrooms, the skill of an F1 team is to get the right people in the right place, doing the right things. Results on the track help to motivate the team, after all that is the raison d'etre of the team, so a good driver is a must. I would add though, that the vision is what it is all about. At Red Bull, I think the key man is Dietrich. Without him, the various ingredients would not have been mixed.

As for all the other stuff, I think there are far too many blurred edges for anyone to say really, especially with all the tailored snippets that are made public.

 

[Josh]

I like Vettel, but I think it's very hard to say that he had a major influence on RB on his arrival there. Let's not forget that there were rule changes in 2009 which helped both the Brawn and RBR teams to rise to the top, coupled of course with Renault being allowed to equalise the difference in engine power compared to their competitors. I don't think you can really claim that Vettel had a major part in this. I do think he had some sort of influence, but this is perhaps more because he is just significantly better than Coulthard and Webber and the team realised they had to raise their game and produce a better car.
Let's also not forget that he was part of Red Bull's driver programme and he was pretty much destined (due to his skill and hard work) to land a seat in the RBR team.
Now, from what I've read and heard, I do believe Vettel is one of the main reasons RBR has managed to kept their game up and remain successful. He can motivate the engineers and various other personnel to work their ass off for him and give their best every single time. I do think he has that extra something that drivers such as Alonso and Schumacher (the first) also have to be able to build a team around them and be successful, however due to the nature and relationship that Vettel and RB have it's very hard to proof at this time that he truly has it. If he goes to another team and builds the team around him only then can you say with absolute certainty that he has that extra something, but let's face it, he has just won 3 titles in a row with RBR so he doesn't really have a reason to leave the team.

Alonso has proven this during both of his stints at Renault and now at Ferrari, which is why people are sure about Alonso and still have some doubts about Vettel.

 

[Olivier]

As Incubus points out at the beginning of the thread, the ultimate Power of One driver has to be Lauda. At Ferrari he was not content with just driving the car, he cut the red tape by making sure the Old Man knew how the car was behaving without any sugar coating and in order to do so he learned Italian. He knew that he needed to give all the information possible to the engineers, he learned the technical lingo, he would sit with Mauro Forghieri for hours to discuss how to improve the car. He did a lot of testing and when he was finished testing, he would get a hold of the printout of intermediate times and spent hours analyzing it to understand where he could improved.

 

[KekeTheKing]

I'm actually starting to get excited about Hamilton's prospects for 2013. When you go into a year thinking "Championship or Bust", it leaves very little room for sheer enjoyment. Even the most ardent fanboys will have tempered expectations for the upcoming campaign, and so I believe there will be plenty of pleasant surprises. I have very little doubt that Lewis will get the Brackley boys fully on board and will build something enduring for the future. These are uncharted waters for Hamilton and his fans, and while there will undoubtedly be ebbs and flows, I'm thrilled that Lewis will finally be venturing out on his own in hopes of solidifying his spot as a legend of the sport and as a well rounded individual that's free to live his own life.

 

[RickD]

Michael Schumacher was a clear driving force at Ferrari. Ross Brawn was also key. At Honda, Jenson Button was instrumental in the move for Ross Brawn, a move which led to title success eventually, would this fit the description?

I find this interesting and opens the door to a lot of questions. Does this mean that Jenson finally got the team around him he needed and lifted the Brackley team to do better, or was the 2009 car created without his input. He had been part of the team for quite a few years and was very frustrated with what he had nearly every year he was there (apart from 2004). If he did lift the team, then could he be added to this list or would most say it was simply down to Ross? If McLaren go on to win both titles next year, could this be seen as Jensons influence at work?

I know a lot will dismiss this out of hand, but I feel it worth asking the question.

 

[FB]

If McLaren, with Button, go on to win multiple Championships then he could certainly be a candidate but I'd say that his early career, at present, precludes him given the rationale I've used. Perhaps he's just a late bloomer?