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The same way Vettel didn't step up in 2012, he could just use the extra downforce of the Red Bull so you ended with races like Japan or Korea. Thanks for illustrating my point.

I must say David has a point when he looks to Red Bull (Newey & Co) for the real answer. I have never really believed in an accomplished driver "upping his game". Consolidation versus having to go flat out is the real difference, with the added factor of development coming in after the summer break. Whether that development suits one driver more than the other in the team, can make or break the second half of the season as much as any outright gain in performance. I believe we saw clearly in both Mercedes and Ferrari teams that they didn't suffer any problems with their number 1 drivers.

I don't even see Baku as an example of Vettel buckling under pressure. That was simply a perfect demonstration of the foolishness of the use of the Spectacle Car. Which I doubt will have set Liberty people thinking about going back to proper motorsport.

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I see you are still struggling with it.

In the context of Vettel vs Ricciardo it's still once, be it 100 races a season.

Vettel had a slim chance at best. The Mercedes was the better car overall. He didn't do it this year partly because of that and partly because he had issues at tracks where Ferrari had their strongest chances.

I would dispute that. Sure, but for the accident in Singapore he was likely on for a win, but otherwise I don't really see anything that could be3 quantified as a sure thing

I don't think that's accurate. He did hit Hamilton in Japan, that's true, but otherwise I don't recall a race where he hit other drivers

Of course it could have been. Just as Hamilton's title this year could have been because he had the best car, or Alonso's two titles could also have been because he had the best car. Without the right car under them drivers can't do an awful lot, but usually performance tends to be a combination of car and driver.

As has already been pointed out by more than one person in this thread, you appear to be taking any opportunity to put Vettel down, creating a thread out of the most tenuous of links to "prove" Vettel is poor. But nothing you have is proof of any kind. We get you don't like Vettel, which is fine. But this has got to seem desperate even to you, surely?

Perhaps I have missed something, but what have we seen that proves it wasn't a "one off" or a "fluke"?
Indeed, I, for one, did not get your "point", if indeed there was one.

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It wasn't a fluke. That would be something like Kvyat beating Ricciardo or Stroll almost beating Massa.

Unfortunately we will never know if it's a one off. Apart from Alonso all the major players seem pretty desperate to avoid each other so the chances of seeing Vettel against a tier 1 benchmark it's pretty slim.

I personally feel it's unlikely that Vettel was at his usual level in 2014. If he was then that changes a lot in terms of how we've evaluated the cars he has driven and the drivers he's been up againat.

What we know is that Ricciardo beat Vettel comprehensively when they were teammates. All else is unsubstantiated speculation.

Cracking under pressure: everyone does from time to time. But was it the pressure? We only know that Vettel threw away three races, two of them by stupid mistakes.

Just to put my own perspective on the debate, I'll tell you why I think Vettel wasn't the one stepping up towards the end of the season and why I think it was Newey: Red Bull are still doing it, and Vettel hasn't driven for them in three years.

If we look at Vettel's years apart from Red Bull, now with a team (Ferrari) not known for their in-season development pace, we see the following picture:

2015: Vettel takes 2 wins from 7 podiums in the first half of the year, and 1 win from 6 podiums in the second half. The second half of the season also contains his only DNFs (one due to driver error), as well as potentially his best performance of the season (Singapore) and unquestionably his worst (Mexico). I don't see any evidence of a step up.

2016: This year is even worse for the step-up theory, with Vettel's results notably tailing off in the second half. Through Germany he took 5 podiums (no wins) with an average finish of 3.7; after the break he took 2 podiums and had an average finish of 4.3, with the DNFs roughly split at 2 in the first half and 1 in the second (none at fault). His best performance was probably either Canada (first half) or Singapore (second half), while his worst was almost certainly Great Britain (first half). No step up here either.

2017: The most recent one in our memories, and the numbers are fairly clear: over the first half, Vettel took 3 wins from 8 podiums with an average finish of 2.4, while after the summer break he took 1 win from 5 podiums with an average finish of 2.7 - he also recorded 2 DNFs in the second half, one of them arguably at fault. I would say that Vettel's best and worst races probably both happened in the first half, being Baku (worst) and maybe Bahrain (best, although this one is less clear).

So in other words, every year Vettel has been at Ferrari his results have been poorer in the second half. The same was true of Alonso when he was Ferrari's lead driver. Meanwhile, Red Bull continues to get stronger in the latter parts of the year with Ricciardo and Verstappen. I think the pattern is quite clear here, and it's not a dig at Vettel: teams with good development improve over the season, while drivers generally do not.

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Can't disagree with any of the above but I think in 2012 there's an argument for both improving. As I understand it the change in exhaust blowing rules lead to a change being needed in driving style to get the most out of the Red Bull concept and while Mark effectively just got in and drove the thing, Seb took his time in the first part of the season to perfect the technique and when he did he was able to extract the maximum from those Newey upgrades which were definitely excellent upgrades but I think in this instance Seb's own work early in the year contributed to that performance jump they gave.

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"Clark came through at the end of the first lap so far ahead that we in the pits were convinced that the rest of the field must have been wiped out in an accident."
-Eddie Dennis, describing the dominance of Jim Clark in the Lotus 49 at Spa 1967

I'd say Vettel in general just got that exhaust blowing technique nailed, and the car improving meant he could just keep doing what he always did and open up an even bigger gap to Webber. I really don't think he ended stronger as such, and I don't mean that as a criticism, he was just so consistently on top of that driving style.

Completely subjective opinion, I don't rate Vettel as the best driver but I don't think anyone would have got more out of that Red Bull than he did.

I don't think you can look at seasons where he wasn't fighting for the championship. I don't think anyone believes Vettel arbitrarily gets better in the second half of the season. More that historically, with a championship on the line Vettel can come up with something a bit extra to get himself over the line. I except he couldn't do that this year but I don't think that changes what he has done in the past. I'm sure that Red Bull development had something to do with it as well but even when just compared to Webber I think it's clear Vettel usually steps up.

On topic it's a difficult one as I do think he could have won the title with a cooler head but he's converted an awful lot of victories and championships so him not being able to handle pressure doesn't exactly sit right.

I don't think he's on Lewis and Alonso's level over all but he's beaten both at numerous times so it's not like he's far away. I also still think the best is yet to come from him. I maintain a drivers peak years are his early 30's and I've still not seen anything to change my mind. Lewis this year the latest to reaffirm it for me.

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"Clark came through at the end of the first lap so far ahead that we in the pits were convinced that the rest of the field must have been wiped out in an accident."
-Eddie Dennis, describing the dominance of Jim Clark in the Lotus 49 at Spa 1967

I think there was a specific change in 2012 though around the EBD that needed yet another technique and there was a change that Mark didn't do but maybe I'm mistaken.

It's ringing a bell from a previous debate around how Mark just ignored it and drove as normal and was beating Seb in early 2012 while Seb took the time to learn the new technique which is why I think 2012 was slightly different. The upgrades alone being driven like Mark approached it might not have been enough had Seb not perfected the new technique.

Hopefully there's a Seb fan that can recall what I'm blabbering on about,lol.

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"Clark came through at the end of the first lap so far ahead that we in the pits were convinced that the rest of the field must have been wiped out in an accident."
-Eddie Dennis, describing the dominance of Jim Clark in the Lotus 49 at Spa 1967

My recollection was the blown effect was removed hence the relative levelling of performance, then Red Bull found a new way to get the same effect so Vettel could go back to doing his thang.

Could be Ennis, I'm not confident enough in my memory to argue it tbh.

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"Clark came through at the end of the first lap so far ahead that we in the pits were convinced that the rest of the field must have been wiped out in an accident."
-Eddie Dennis, describing the dominance of Jim Clark in the Lotus 49 at Spa 1967

Nor am I in mine, so if you do argue it I won't put up much of a fight

Thanks it was clear over the season that vettel lost his marbles and Hamilton kept calm and cool. And so managed to win the title while vettel and Ferrari cracked

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Pathfinder

While I was gathering the data for that post I took a quick look at his RBR years for comparison, and it seemed to me that Webber generally scored better results in the second half as well.

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Yes, I'd agree.

2010 - trails a distant 4th in WDC after GB (behind Webber). Only Alonso had a better second half of the season than him. Vettel averaged 4th place in the first half, while the second half saw him step up to average 3rd each race. Webber, by contrast, averaged just a fraction less than 5th place in the first half and maintained that in the second half. So Webber didn't show any improvement, while Vettel did.
2011 - Vettel and Webber were both pretty consistent, with Vettel outscoring Webber by some 50% in both halves
2012 - was trailing in 3rd at the halfway point, a long way behind Alonso. Finished the year by scoring more than 50% more points than the first half. Webber, by comparison, scored 50% fewer
points in the second half of the year than he did in the first. So if that was down to Newey then Webber certainly didn't get the memo.
2013 - In the 2nd half of the year he had a perfect run. In the first half, his average was 17 points per race, or just less than 2nd place each time. Webber was consistent and scored almost identically in the first and second halves. Again, he clearly didn't improve to anywhere near the same level as Vettel.

So in conclusion, only Vettel showed anything like improving in the second half of each season. Webber didn't show improvements of any significance in any year. So I'd question how people could put Vettel's improvements down to Newey, since he was the only Red Bull driver to step up at all.

My memory isn't enough for 2010 or 2011, but 2012 seemed to be more to do with getting the rear downforce tagged back on whilst 2013 related to the tyre change...

It was the same for both drivers, though, surely? I'm not arguing against as you could be right, but the point is that historically Vettel did improve in the second half of the year, so before this year it wasn't a myth of any kind.

Which takes us to the other point of Webber never being able to take advantage of that driving style around the blown exhaust. My perception is it as more to do with Vettel being able to drive a style, and RBR updating their car which meant he could unlock that, rather than his actual performances improving. And again I don't say that as a criticism, I think he was consistently good but really elevated above Webber when he had all that rear downforce to use.

I agree that Vettel appears to be better when he has a car with a lot of downforce and that Webber seemed unable to take advantage of that to anywhere near the same extent. But I don't recall e.g. 2010 having any major changes in that area and yet Vettel still improved in the second half of the year.

Whether Vettel needs a car to have certain properties in order to perform to his best is an interesting debate. I personally think he excels with high downforce and this suits his driving style more than cars without. But the above points were to counter the original claim that him improving was a myth and others making out that Webber showed similar improvements. I don't see either as being true

Bitter about the team principals ranking both Verstappen and Vettel above Ricciardo?

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I think too much is being made of Vettel's so-called state of mind. In Baku he had an obvious meltdown, but other than that?

- Malaysia: even if you would hold him responsible (won't go into that debate again), then it would be clumsy and/or inattentive rather than pressure-related. Think about it: he's just had a race from the back, faultless and fast. If pressure would have struck, then it would have been during the race. What pressure is there on a cooldown lap? None.

- Singapore: normal manoeuvre, going with the logic that he had to win it since the following races would suit Mercedes more. Getting passed meant 7 less points, desperately needed points, hence the squeeze. Nothing wrong with it, often seen in racing, just unfortunate that another car was on the inside.

- Mexico: basically going all-in to try and keep whatever hope was left.

Hamilton didn't win the title because Vettel imploded or something.

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Finally some sensible thoughts.

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The end is near

Agreed. Good post, mds.

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David Heath reminds me of someone who regularly posts on the comment section of articles on the ESPN F1 website. His name is Navin Jaya or something.
He HATES Vettel and Ferrari with passion!
Maybe you two can form a club or something lol

That's a very basic way of looking at it Zoue. Your analysis needs to go deeper than just looking at the points total.

so what do you think I'm missing?

I think Max got in Vettel's head. Both Singapore and Mexico were overly aggressive defensive manoeuvres against a non-championship contender. There was no reason to take such risks against a driver who is known to be non-yielding when you are in a championship battle with someone else. Even at Silverstone, Vettel was unnecessarily aggressive with Max.

Hamilton on the other hand approached Max with caution and did not fight him too hard when he came up against him in Malaysia and Hungary.

Just to get you started - you don't want to take into account that Webber had 3 DNFs in the 2nd half of the season in 2013?

Ok so Hamilton could afford to drop points whereas Vettel could not yet he had the car to win the title interesting one at that.

It was irrelevant whether Max was a Championship contender in Singapore: Vettel needed to win that race to keep his title hopes alive and covered off the opposition in a way that drivers commonly do. Hamilton took the same "risk" only one race earlier. And in Mexico, again, Vettel needed to win the race to have any chance whatsoever of remaining in the title fight. He was more than 60 points behind with three races remaining. What benefit to him being cautious? That's not a sign of Max being in Vettel's head

How does this affects Vettel performance honestly?

Lol.

Well it is true that without the mistakes in Canada, Baku and Singapore that Vettel would have been WDC this year. But i doubt he will ponder on that too long.

At that stage of the season, Hamilton and Vettel were still close in the championship battle. Neither of them would want to drop points.

It doesn't. Please read Zoue's original post in order to understand the context.

Will it make a difference? He had one DNF is the first half, too. He got three 2nd places in the second half, while his team mate was winning every race. Webber wasn't exactly leading when he hit trouble in any of them.

So no, there's no evidence that Webber upped his game in any year, while Vettel did.

No, it's not true.