Zoue wrote:
In 2009 he was good through most of the year: Lewis and Kimi outscored him in the second half but his consistency carried over from the first half earned him second place overall.
Not entirely true. The season had an odd number of GP and if you take German GP into consideration (the last 9 vs the last

then Seb scored the most points in that stretch despite two retirements. He also won two out of the last three races. He was the strongest driver at the end of the season.
Zoue wrote:
In 2010 Alonso scored the most number of points in the second half of the year, not Vettel, which seems to be the commonly held belief. His run was actually the most impressive of all as he came from a deficit of 47 points (after GB) to within 4 points of the title, compared to a "paltry" 24 point gap for Seb. Seb showed strong nerve in the final race in the face of almost impossible odds, reminiscent of Kimi in 2007, but in all honesty that title owes as much to Alonso / Ferrari throwing it away in the last race as it does to Seb winning it (much like Lewis / McLaren threw it away in 2007).
That doesn't represent what happened. Alonso had a very strong stretch between Italy and Korea, winning 3 out of 4 races. He led the points with two races to go with a 25 point advantage over Vettel. Vettel was even better though, winning 3 out of last 4 with the only loss coming in Korea where he retired from the lead due to a mechanical issue. His finish was perfect. Alonso and Webber did throw away their chances through a combination of driver (Korea and Abu Dhabi for Webber, Abu Dhabi for Alonso) and team mistakes, but that's part of what we are talking about. They were unable to finish strongly whereas Seb delivered.
Zoue wrote:
Seb also had a very consistent year, scoring only 14 more points in the second half compared to the first and with one extra retirement in the first half that gap lowers even more.
Sure, he was good throughout the year, but it was the finish that was stellar. Three out of his five wins came in the last four races.
Zoue wrote:
In 2011 Seb actually had a worse second half than first, as he never finished lower than 2nd in the first half but, shock horror, actually finished off the podium at his home Grand Prix. So in none of the above years did Seb really adapt better than anyone else later in the year, contrary to widely accepted wisdom:
Actually, in every season he had a stronger 2nd half, and finished stronger than his competitors so the widely accepted wisdom is correct in this case. 2011 is the exception, but here he had no competition late in the second half and he even gave Mark a win in the final race.
Zoue wrote:
generally speaking he was simply more consistent than anyone else. It's only really 2012 and 2013 where he had a noticeably better 2nd half than 1st and that could be pinpointed to two major factors: in 2012 it's been widely speculated that in the second half of the year RBR managed to find a way to unlock extra downforce to compensate for the loss of the EBD, which would partly explain why he suddenly left Mark in his dust after being level pegging at the end of the first half;
Why do you automatically attribute Seb's improvement as being entirely down to the team figuring things out when Webber did not show improvement? Is it because it's convenient for your argument? No other driver is judged according to this type of double standard: if he wins or gets better - it's the team, if he doesn't - it's his fault. Of course the team works to improve, but somehow Webber never got better, only Vettel.
Zoue wrote:
and all the teams struggled to understand the tyres in the first half of the year, which is why we had seven different winners for the first seven Grands Prix. After the summer break things settled down it was obvious that the RR was the car to beat. Whether that was Vettel understanding things better or the car improving is difficult to say, but without taking anything away from his superb performance past history would indicate that it was the car that improved, since previously Vettel had been all about consistency, as we've seen.
No it's not just about consistency though of course it's a part of it. Counting up the last 5 GP of the past 5 seasons, Seb has won 15 out of 25 races (and gave away one additional win to placate Mark). There could not be a clearer case of a driver winning precisely when it mattered. These winning streaks were preceded by strong, consistent performances while the team and the driver were working to improve. Things don't come out of the thin air - it's a function of work that was put in, and how well it was done.
Zoue wrote:
Finally, 2013. As in 2012 Seb had a much stronger 2nd half of the year, scoring a perfect run after the summer break. His first half wasn't poor, exactly, but there's no doubt he upped his game. It could be confidence (although I'm not sure he's ever been short of that), it could be tyres, it could be some development secret. But since 2013 was fairly static rules-wise compared with 2012 I'm not inclined to think Seb needed to adapt to much, unless you count the changed tyre compound, of course. And then he came into his own after they changed the tyres back to the 2012 construction. Which actually implies the reverse of him being more adaptable, since arguably he improved his performance once he was back on familiar territory with the older tyres.
He led after the first half - strong and consistent as usual. There is no reason to think that he wouldn't get stronger in the second half regardless of the tire package change. Except of course that he is Vettel, a disliked driver, so any pretext is good to pretend that it was not his improvement, but the team, the car or the rules. There is no question that the team works to improve, and it is largely down to the technical package, but the car doesn't drive itself. As Webber's case shows, RBR car is not that easy to drive fast.