Friday 1 August 2014

Sebastian Vettel fighting back


“When he [Vettel] will have a car like the others, if he wins, he will have a great recognition and be one of the legends in F1… When one day he has a car like the others and he is fourth, fifth, seventh, these four titles will be bad news for him because people will take these four titles in a worse manner than they are doing now.”

There’s a German leading the championship in the best car in 2014. It’s not Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull though. However, the Red Bull team have mostly been the second best out there and have taken two victories so far this year, but neither was scored by their four time champion. Two facts which make the above quote from Fernando Alonso at the tail end of last year stand out just a little bit more.

At the time of Vettel’s victorious years many in the F1 world wondered whether it was just the car catapulting him to win after win. Could it be that he was merely a good driver piloting an exceptional car? I wondered during winter testing when it became apparent that Red Bull would be facing an uphill battle if Vettel would struggle when confronted with a car which wasn’t an immediate front runner.

In brief I speculated that with the banning of blown diffusers, something Vettel had exceptional technique with and a major advantage of the Red Bull if he’d full back in the pack. Further to that the conservatism with which Pirelli approached this season because of the huge torque coming from the new for 2014 hybrid turbo power units, and the fact that I think they were fed up with their tyres being blamed for everything took another advantage of Vettel’s away. He was brilliant at getting the best out of those more brittle tyres, better than anyone else.

Two major elements had been taken away along with a whole chunk of downforce and one major addition of a power unit where the throttle pedal is extremely sensitive, unlike in the blown diffuser era where you practically stepped on it and let the aero sort you out, it would stick in the corner, now it won’t. It doesn't help that his Renault power unit is the worst in the field as much as 90bhp down on th Mercedes.


I thought back in February that if Vettel were to struggle it would be an ideal opportunity for his new team mate Daniel Ricciardo, promoted from Toro Rosso, to take advantage. But Vettel is a four time world champion, so I dismissed this as a possibility but highly unlikely. As has become quite clear during this season, never dismiss Ricciardo for the young Australian is a brilliant talent.

He leads Vettel in qualifying by 6-5 which should actually be 7-4 as Ricciardo suffered a 10 place grid penalty in Bahrain which put him behind his team mate. In the races he is even further ahead. When both cars have finished Ricciardo has beaten Vettel 6-1.

Ricciardo has scored five podiums of which two were wins and this is not including the second place he was disqualified from in his home race. Vettel has managed to get on the podium just twice this year and each time it was the bottom step. For all the world to see these statistics provide a compelling case, when he’s finished it’s been mostly fourths and fifths, kind of what Alonso said might be the case if Vettel were to sit in a car which wasn’t the best, you know that’s what the Spaniard was implying.

First of all that shouldn’t take anything away from Vettel’s achievements of the previous four years, it was a different era of Formula 1, one in which he exploited the potential of the machinery available to him to the full. In that era, with that technology he was unsurpassed. This is a very different Formula 1, one in which he hasn’t yet got used to. 

Alonso is a brilliant driver, probably the best all-rounder in the business, he can adapt to anything that comes his way, to me that makes a great driver. His current team mate Kimi Raikkonen was meant to challenge him but Alonso has wiped the floor with him, I don’t think that means Kimi is suddenly a bad driver. He has been brilliant these past few years, but something about this new era doesn’t sit well with him a bit like Vettel.

Vettel is sensitive to change, he needs a car where the back end will stick, something that the cars are not capable of doing to the extent they have been in the recent past. Vettel has not been able to change his style and feel comfortable in the car whereas Ricciardo has jumped in straight from Toro Rosso which didn’t have as advanced blown diffuser technology and straight away adapted to this new Formula. He is a team mate who is eager for success, something Vettel has not had to put up with for a while as probably since 2011 Mark Webber was demotivated a lot of the time after losing his one shot at the title.

This doesn’t mean he won’t learn how to deal with these cars or that success has somehow dulled his driving when he’s got to fight harder for it. If anything his frustrated radio messages this year show just how much more he wants, just how annoyed he is at being beaten. This car and this team mate is the toughest time he's ever had in Formula 1, even though he denies this. Ricciardo has been constantly shading him in qualifying. Just when you think Vettel might have the beating of the Aussie, Ricciardo pulls a lap out of the bag. In the races Ricciardo is feisty, attacking, amazingly consistent, including the Mercedes drivers, he has probably been the most impressive driver of the season so far.

Vettel is up against a star of the future, just like Alonso was when Lewis Hamilton got his chance at McLaren when the Spaniard was beaten. This is plainly not some journeyman driver who has turned up at Red Bull, he’s been through the same young driver program Vettel himself went through, there is little doubt that Vettel is up against a future world champion.

Having said that, there are signs that Vettel is turning a corner, especially since FRIC suspension was banned, he looked strong in Germany and out-qualified Ricciardo in Hungary. But even before then, he hasn’t been quite as trounced by Ricciardo as it might seem; it could be argued that both Ricciardo’s wins could have been Vettel’s. Delays in traffic meant he exited behind Ricciardo after pit stops in Canada when he was running in front for most of the race. It could well have been him who took advantage of the struggling Mercedes.

In Hungary he was in third when the safety car came out as he was passing the pit lane, just behind Ricciardo was one of the first into the pits which put him into the lead at the restart. Circumstance has not gone his way nor has reliability, it’s like they’ve given him Webber’s car.

So yes, Vettel has been out performed this year, he hasn’t made the best of the equipment at his disposal, so he’s certainly not out-performing the car like a great can. However, he has out-performed the car in previous years (Red Bull never had an advantage like Mercedes have this year), he is improving in this era and he is beginning to match an exceptional young driver.

Might you have expected more from a four time champion? Yes, quite probably, but this car doesn’t suit him, but it’s coming to him and I will not be surprised to see him match and beat Ricciardo more often after the summer break. He won’t dominate him like Webber, he may not even beat him overall this year, but he’ll match him. He is a very intelligent driver, very mechanical minded and he won’t leave a piece of telemetry unturned until he’s worked out how to succeed once again.


It’s not all lost for Vettel, he’s only just turned 27, he is still learning himself and sometimes it does you good to experience losing. But he won’t want it to last for long. He has achieved great success, but is he a great yet? Greatness is too often bandied around, greatness is earned, it’s about how you achieve success, how you exploit it when the opportunity arises and how you get it back when times are tough. Vettel is going through those hard times, but as the season continues and turns into 2015 I won’t be surprised to see him standing atop the podium once again. He’s turning a corner, adjusting, and it may take until next year, but it’s coming to him, and he’ll make sure it does.

all photo's taken from autosport.com

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