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Are you seriously suggesting that these were going to end ahead of Vettel in the end?

He was directly behind Alonso in lap 10 or so for god's sake!

Even with damaged car, Vetell was extremely fast in the wet, and when it was wet, had no problems whatsoever to overtake (including Kobayashi, who made it as hard as possible), Massa, Rosberg, etc., so the only guys that could finish ahead of him, finished ahead of him.

Alonso gained 6 pts, Vettel only 2 (Hulkenberg was still comfortably ahead of Vettel), so its still 4 points for Alonso.

If it wasn't for the problems in the first lap, which made the car very slow in dry conditions, Vettel would be finghting for the win, he defintely had the pace. In many stages of the race (when it was wet) he was the fastest car on the track by quite a margin.

But at the end, it's difference in the points that is meaningful for the WDC, not the absolute points. In this case, it's not only that Vettel loses 25 points, he also gifts 7 points to his main competitor. It works both ways.

Really, please educate yourself about the negative numbers first and then we'll discuss again.

Really, please educate yourself about the negative numbers first and then we'll discuss again.

He can't loose what he never had.

So no one lost the 2012 WDC?

Thanks for taking my quote completely out of context.

Maybe if you engaged just a little bit of common sense. You would understand what I meant.

Nice one. Putting in an insult on the sly.

1. The metric is the difference between Vettel's points and Alonso's points
2. Before the race 100 (vettel) - 100 (alonso) = 0
3. If the alternator doesn't fail: 125(vettel) - 118 (alonso) = 7
4. If the alternator fails: 100 (vettel) - 125 (alonso) = -25
5. The difference between the two scenarios: 7 - (-25) = 7 + 25 = 32

swong
You have two scenarios with 100 and 125 and still end up with 32 diff? No further explaining required, but that's not math.

You have two scenarios with 100 and 125 and still end up with 32 diff? No further explaining required, but that's not math.

I'm no math wiz and I'm sure someone can and will correct me with the proper terminology but here's how I see the points differential that superuses is talking about:

A. I have a cow. You don't. I have more milk than you. You're envious.

B. I lose the cow. We're both cowless. We drink vodka since we have no milk.

C. I lose the cow. I'm drunk and I feel like having déjà vu. You find my cow and hide it in your barn. I've still got nothing. You have a cow now. Now you have more milk than me and I'm drunk and sad. And singing.

As you see B. and C. are different but I only lost one cow not two. Unless you're drunk already and seing double.

I am not sure that I follow your logic - why would anyone hide a cow in their barn when they can have vodka instead? Plus, if you are singing you cannot be that sad!

That saying has never made sense to me. Sometimes you can position yourself in such a way that you can salvage a situation or gain an advantage. Sometimes you can drive with a sympathy that will cause you less failures, or an attitude that will help keep you out of trouble. You can certainly prepare to the point you're leaving very little to luck. But that's not making your own luck, that's making the right judgement calls and doing all you can. Actual luck is something you have no control over. Ultimately there's nothing you can do if someone is intent on Grosjeaning you at the first turn from 8 places away, or the mechanic drops a wheelnut when you're bang on your marks, or the alternator fails when you're leading rather than when you're 6th.

I can believe luck evens itself out and that the right preperation, attitude and decisions can overcome any number of instances we might (erroneously) describe as luck. But you can't make your own luck.

Sorry, that phrase has just always bugged me! I'll shut up about it now.

Hm, so the Ferrari wasn't that bad after all? Because it wasn't that fast but it wasn't that fragile either. Maybe, just maybe, the WCC reflect the car strength reasonably well (considering both the reliability and the speed). So Alonso had the 2nd best (not fastest) car in season and finished 2nd. Logical, isn't it?

mkone,

it makes no difference whatsoever, it is a meaningless waste of time and exercise. It is based on "what ifs" and "if only" and if any one else were so bored, they could do up one of these threads for every driver in the field. It comes across as merely yet another attempt to discredit Alonso as the Vettel fans cry about others discrediting Seb's accomplishments.

Did Alonso get some breaks during the season? No doubt he did. Did other drivers also get some lucky breaks during the year.. Yes, they did, and that includes Vettel.

There has never been a WDC without a bit of good luck, and never will be. The same can be said about the runner-up and 3rd and so forth

I must say though, I don't recall ever seeing such an effort into making the WDC runner-up merely being lucky to have been that close... winners yes, but runner-up? Does this reflect an uneasiness on the part of Vettel supporters about the narrowness of his victory or frustration over the fact that many feel that Alonso was the superior driver this year despite not winning the WDC himself?

Vettel won the WDC. It doesn't matter if he won it by one point or by 100. He is the champion, and the history books shall record that. 10 years from now, no one will talk about who was second in the championship, so really, us Vettel fans are not bothered in the slightest about whether other people feel Alonso "deserved" it more.

The question about who was luckier is about "what if" scenarios. Luck is something out of the driver's control, and no one can argue against the fact that both Alonso and Vettel lost points this season due to events beyond their control. Whether one was being Grosjeaned or an alternator failing. What is really obvious is that some people do not want to believe Vettel had some bad luck this season as well, including Stefano Domenicali, the Ferrari team principal. Stefano tried to make out that Alonso was the moral victor because he nearly won it having only scored in 18 races.

The most laughable of these is when people try to argue that Vettel was very lucky in the final race to have an incident in the first lap.

He won it, and well deserved, yet even Vettel has been saying that he deserved it and that the car factor has not been not so influential... why does he need to maintain those statements? Maybe because inside he knows that Alonso deserved it even more... Lap times in some circuits speak by themselves.

Let's see the situations outside of the control of the main WDC competitors:

1. Valencia: Vettel's mechanical DNF from the lead: Alonso gains 7 points, Vettel loses 25, so in total Vettel lost 32 points to Fernando

2. Malaysia: Kathikeyan clips Vettel from behind, Vettel loses possible 12 points.

3. Spa: Grosjean takes out Alonso and Hamilton: Alonso loses possible 18 points (2nd), Vettel gained 3 points (if FA was second), so Vettel gained 21 points from Alonso

4. Monza: Vettel mechanical DNF: loses possible 12 points to Alonso. Alonso problems in quali, loses possible 3 points (3rd instead of 4th) - in total gains 9 points to Vettel.

5. Singapore: Hamilton mechanical DNF: Vettel gains 7 points, Alonso gains 3 points, so in total 4 points gain for Vettel

6. Japan: Alonso loses possible 18 points, Vettel gains 18 points from him. I'm not sure that I can even count this one as bad luck only, as it was ruled as racing incident but someone can accuse me of being unfair, so I'm including it.

7. Abu Dhabu: Vettel quali problem with the fuel, Hamilton mechanical DNF - Vettel loses 10 points (possibly first place, Alonso gains 3 points (2nd instead of 3rd), in total Alonso gains 13 points

8. USA: Webber DNF, Alonso gains 3 points

9. Brazil: Alonso gains 6 points from the Hamilton/Hulkenberg crash. Note that I'm not including the first lap incident between Vettel and Senna, which clearly cost Vettel a few points, because it's debatable who's was at fault.

In total: Alonso gains 29 points to Vettel from luck. I'm not counting the points Massa gifted to him in USA and Brasil (at least 10 more), while Webber wasn't at all helpful at that stage of the championship.

Note: I'm not saying Alonso didn't have a great season. It was maybe his best, but without his luck, he would have lost the title long before Brazil. My analysis is very conservative as you can see in bold above.

Note2: Hamilton had the worst luck from everybody, it's unbelievable how bad it was, nobody can deny that.

Obviously RB was faster than Ferrari in most of the races (but not all) and if they were the first and second fastest team, it would've meant a lot (7 pts difference between the first and second). But McLarens were even faster than RB, ensuring that Alonso lost at most 3 pts per race when his car was third fastest (and in many tracks it was second fastest, not 3rd fastest). That is because usualy one of the McLarens self-destructed and the 2nd drivers in RB and Ferrari were nowhere most of the time.