Originally Posted by sergio2006:
“What more can the guy do? he arguably didnt have the best car this weekend and still won, by 10 clear seconds. Driver of the day should go to the driver who performed best that day and that was Vettel.”
I think you've got to look at the relative performance of the cars before you can properly consider what's meant by a "best" car.
The irony is that at the start of the year RBR was wiping the floor with everybody in quali' and then the McLaren was much closer during the race.
It seems that the boffins at McLaren have looked at what the difference between quali' and the race is and decided to focus on developing the DRS to improve quali' performance and the result is that they've (possibly) gone
too far down that road and ended up with a car which IS faster during quali, when a driver can use DRS anywhere they want, but relies on it too heavily to be competitive in races.
The battle between Webber and Hamilton REALLY demonstrated this very well.
Every time that Hamilton's been battling for a position during the season (we can only really look at Hamilton cos you don't often see Button battling for anything) he's only been able to do it for a handful of laps without destroying his tyres whereas Webber could sit right behind Lewis for 20-odd laps without his car becoming less competitive at all during that time.
The straight-line speed of the McLaren, along with it's ability to make the most of DRS really flatter it, IMO, whereas I suspect that the RBR is actually still a far, far superior car aerodynamically.
It seems to do a much better job of providing downforce and it doesn't seem to be affected as much by the turbulent air generated by a car in front.
I wonder if the main difference between Vettel and Webber is simply that Vettel is able to trust the car entirely whereas years of driving dodgy cars mean that Webber is often not as confident through the corners as Vettel?
I still don't think Vettel has done a huge amount to prove himself as an outstanding driver.
I think he IS a lot like Hamilton is so far as that he's a driver who always "goes for it" but the problem is that Hamilton can't get his head around the idea that his car isn't always able to deliver the performance he wants whereas Vettel is in a car which means he doesn't have to get his head around it.
I don't think individual overtaking manoevres really do much to prove his ability but I DO think that his performance at Monaco this year, for example, are a terrific showcase for his skills.
His tyres were absolutely knackered and he still kept his lead because he knew he couldn't afford to make another pit-stop.
Thing there is, I guess that (as usual) he was in the lead so he could devote the majority of his attention to managing his tyres and doing careful laps.
If he'd been in that situation while he was in 6th place, in amongst a group of cars, I suspect you'd have seen a very different result because he'd have been forced to pay attention to attacking, defending and looking for gaps
as well as looking after his tyres.