Well done Vettel

I was asking for Stefano's head for years. I hope they ditch the Italian black coats and hire some good people.

a little disappointed the way webber finished the season... he drove like shit, (mainly korea)...
but it's still abit weird to me that he ended up 1 second off seb in Q3... i call an unsubstantiated bullshit on redbull for that...

damn well won by Vettel though... absolutely crushed em! 100% deserving champion!

and i'm cheering that alonso(tool) didnt win it for ferrari (cheating fkrs)!

Webber was never ahead of Vettel during a race (bar pit stops) since Monza. Webber had a shocker last 6 races. As proved during his career, he cracks under pressure.

Half a second slower than Vettel. Webber admits Abu Dhabi is not his favourite circuit, similarly Singapore, and it really tells. At both races, he was a similar distance behind Sebastian.

PLAYLIFE wrote:Webber was never ahead of Vettel during a race (bar pit stops) since Monza. Webber had a shocker last 6 races. As proved during his career, he cracks under pressure.

Half a second slower than Vettel. Webber admits Abu Dhabi is not his favourite circuit, similarly Singapore, and it really tells. At both races, he was a similar distance behind Sebastian.

yeah, but he was alot better than expected against seb... he gave it a good shake

Revs wrote:

PLAYLIFE wrote:Webber was never ahead of Vettel during a race (bar pit stops) since Monza. Webber had a shocker last 6 races. As proved during his career, he cracks under pressure.

Half a second slower than Vettel. Webber admits Abu Dhabi is not his favourite circuit, similarly Singapore, and it really tells. At both races, he was a similar distance behind Sebastian.

yeah, but he was alot better than expected against seb... he gave it a good shake

Yup I thought so too, our boy 'punched above his weight' as he so often says.

RDD wrote:

PLAYLIFE wrote:

da silva wrote:
Alonso not congratulating Sebastian shows how classless he is.

Fernando Alonso "I want to congratulate Red Bull and its drivers: over the course of the season they have had a little something extra than us and they deserve to be where they are today."

PR release, Alonso's English is nothing like this.

BBC red button, about 10 minutes after the race.

Jake Humphrey, David Coulthard and Eddie Jordan interview Christian Horner. Horner reveals Fernando Alonso came and saw him and congratulated RBR on their championship.


You may not like Alonso (or any other driver/team), but don't discredit them. Most if not all of the guys do actually have respect for one another.

BAH - RBR/Ferrari
AUS - RBR - Ferrari very close
MAL - RBR
CHI - RBR
ESP - RBR
MON - RBR - Massa qualified fourth and if Alonso had not fucked up he could have easily been on the front row, if not pole.
TUR - RBR - RBR was in a league of their own, it was only because of the crash Mac had a look in.
CAN - McLaren/RBR/Ferrari probably in that order but very close - Outstanding performance by Lewis made the difference.
EUR - RBR
GB - RBR
GER - Ferrari
HUN - RBR
BEL - RBR
ITA - Ferrari
SIN - RBR/Ferrari
JAP - RBR
KOR - RBR - Ferrari was very close here.
BRA - RBR
UAE - RBR

No way was Ferrari the 3rd best car over the season.

PLAYLIFE wrote:Let's go through and pick the best car for each GP.

BAH - RBR
AUS - RBR
MAL - RBR
CHI - RBR
ESP - RBR
MON - RBR
TUR - RBR/McLaren
CAN - McLaren/RBR/Ferrari probably in that order but very close
EUR - RBR
GB - RBR
GER - Ferrari
HUN - RBR
BEL - RBR
ITA - McLaren/Ferrari
SIN - RBR
JAP - RBR
KOR - RBR
BRA - RBR
UAE - RBR

Feel free to change it.

Right That settles it then. Let's have a World Championship based in Canada.

It makes sense - it's the only circuit where the driver makes the difference.

Quite unique really - I can't think of any other World Series based in one country...

da silva wrote:BAH - RBR/Ferrari
AUS - RBR - Ferrari very close
MAL - RBR
CHI - RBR
ESP - RBR
MON - RBR - Massa qualified fourth and if Alonso had not fucked up he could have easily been on the front row, if not pole.
TUR - RBR - RBR was in a league of their own, it was only because of the crash Mac had a look in.
CAN - McLaren/RBR/Ferrari probably in that order but very close - Outstanding performance by Lewis made the difference.
EUR - RBR
GB - RBR
GER - Ferrari
HUN - RBR
BEL - RBR
ITA - Ferrari
SIN - RBR/Ferrari
JAP - RBR
KOR - RBR - Ferrari was very close here.
BRA - RBR
UAE - RBR

AUS - Vettel was smashing everyone, even with the late pit-stop call he was still leading and pulling away.

MON - I believe Alonso could have got onto the front row, at least a podium anyway. But I believe RBR were a good 3 tenths quicker here as well.

TUR - RBR were not in a league of their own, in fact, McLaren were quicker. All 4 cars were separeted by less than 4 seconds for the first 39 laps before the crash. I watched this race last night. Hamilton was up Webber's ass and then Vettel's ass the whole time. He would lose a sh1tload of time through T8 which meant he wasn't close enough when getting onto the straight two turns later for a pass.


End of the day, best measure for car performance is the Constructors. McLaren easily finished 2nd, challenged for 1st for the majority of the season if they weren't actually leading it.

Measure of a good car is not just outright speed for one driver, but also how adaptable it is to both drivers amongst a million other things.

I'm happy to disagree with you.

If the drivers don't utilized the potential of a car, the measure of the car is largely irrelevant. Alonso threw away many points mostly in the first half, whether it was crashes, poor starts, wrong moves, etc., then Massa post-Germany was hardly motivated, so just because the Ferrari made a mess of it and finished 3rd doesn't mean they were the 3rd best car.

Potential speed of the car is one thing, but also how easy it is to drive another. Maybe the Ferrari did have a lot of speed, but it was just a b1tch to drive.

I believe the F60 was an ok car but really difficult to master, as Badoer and Fisichella proved.

PLAYLIFE wrote:Potential speed of the car is one thing, but also how easy it is to drive another. Maybe the Ferrari did have a lot of speed, but it was just a b1tch to drive.

I believe the F60 was an ok car but really difficult to master, as Badoer and Fisichella proved.

i dunno, the ferrari was clearly a very good car toward the end of the season as correlates with alonso's rise... and i heard earlier in the season that the car was actually very easy to drive it just lacked downforce and a decent fduct... which is largely summed up to the earo guys at ferrari being nowehere near that of renault mclaren and newey.

Revs wrote:

PLAYLIFE wrote:Potential speed of the car is one thing, but also how easy it is to drive another. Maybe the Ferrari did have a lot of speed, but it was just a b1tch to drive.

I believe the F60 was an ok car but really difficult to master, as Badoer and Fisichella proved.

i dunno, the ferrari was clearly a very good car toward the end of the season as correlates with alonso's rise... and i heard earlier in the season that the car was actually very easy to drive it just lacked downforce and a decent fduct... which is largely summed up to the earo guys at ferrari being nowehere near that of renault mclaren and newey.

That's probably the point right there:

RBR was clearly the fastest, super quick on high downforce circuits.
The McLaren had the supreme advantage of the F-duct (for the first half).
Ferriri was just generally solid but didn't have a massive advantage in any one area.

The McLaren may not have had the raw lap speed, but it was a brilliant 'race car' with the f-duct advantage.

I'm not so sure the Ferrari was easy to drive, Alonso always looked to be driving the wheels off it. And what of Massa's lack of pace all season?? In 2006 did well against MS taking a few wins, 2007 was in with a shot for the WDC with 2 to go, took Lewis to the wire in 2008 and 2009 matched Kimi. Now all of a sudden he is 0.5 seconds per lap slower all season? Consquence of his accident? Or the car is just not as good and Alonso is out-performing it.

Again, it's all opinion. Other than statistics and actually having watched the races, there's no way of knowing.

PLAYLIFE wrote:

Revs wrote:

PLAYLIFE wrote:Potential speed of the car is one thing, but also how easy it is to drive another. Maybe the Ferrari did have a lot of speed, but it was just a b1tch to drive.

I believe the F60 was an ok car but really difficult to master, as Badoer and Fisichella proved.

i dunno, the ferrari was clearly a very good car toward the end of the season as correlates with alonso's rise... and i heard earlier in the season that the car was actually very easy to drive it just lacked downforce and a decent fduct... which is largely summed up to the earo guys at ferrari being nowehere near that of renault mclaren and newey.

That's probably the point right there:

RBR was clearly the fastest, super quick on high downforce circuits.
The McLaren had the supreme advantage of the F-duct (for the first half).
Ferriri was just generally solid but didn't have a massive advantage in any one area.

The McLaren may not have had the raw lap speed, but it was a brilliant 'race car' with the f-duct advantage.

I'm not so sure the Ferrari was easy to drive, Alonso always looked to be driving the wheels off it. And what of Massa's lack of pace all season?? In 2006 did well against MS taking a few wins, 2007 was in with a shot for the WDC with 2 to go, took Lewis to the wire in 2008 and 2009 matched Kimi. Now all of a sudden he is 0.5 seconds per lap slower all season? Consquence of his accident? Or the car is just not as good and Alonso is out-performing it.

Again, it's all opinion. Other than statistics and actually having watched the races, there's no way of knowing.

the ferrari always looked alot lower to the ground than the mclaren,, i think they were caught between a rock and hard place trying to compete with rbr on one hand in qualifying and race trim against mclaren on the other... on its own track without those externals i think it'd be the sweetest one to drive.... plus it's red...

EDIT: i think ferrari made the most allround porogress with the car.... redbull did aswell having already secured hella downforce, and the renault's fduct was simply amazing.

EDIT EDIT: i think massa gave up after the $100k incident...

PLAYLIFE wrote:

I'm not so sure the Ferrari was easy to drive, Alonso always looked to be driving the wheels off it. And what of Massa's lack of pace all season?? In 2006 did well against MS taking a few wins, 2007 was in with a shot for the WDC with 2 to go, took Lewis to the wire in 2008 and 2009 matched Kimi. Now all of a sudden he is 0.5 seconds per lap slower all season? Consquence of his accident? Or the car is just not as good and Alonso is out-performing it.

The problem with Massa the last half of the season resulted from the orchidectomy that was performed in Germany. I imagine its pretty hard to race following an emasculation!

I think Massa was poor from the very beginning.

Alonso being the new boy and limited testing, took a few races to get into the groove. Remember, Alonso had only a handful of days testing in February/March to get used to the Ferrari...and some time in the old car. Massa obviously having been there since 2006 had a huge continuity advantage. People shouldn't underestimate how much that means.

I am still a bit mistified as to the gap between Massa and Alonso. Bar 2006, it was the biggest gap to his team-mate.

And it wasn't just from post Germany.

Before Germany, from 10 races he had 67 points. An average finish position of 7th??

I don't think you are suddenly that slow. Something was definately going on at Maranello. You don't go from being only points away from the WDC 2 years in a row driving against Kimi Raikonin to a mid field driver.

The true story will come out within a few years.

I think his head injury may have something to do with it. But I'm also positive the huge amount of Santander money came with stipulations!

da silva wrote:I think his head injury may have something to do with it. But I'm also positive the huge amount of Santander money came with stipulations!

Yep, either that or as he said multiple times during the season, couldn't get the tyres to work for him. I'm thinking the former.

Alonso voted best driver by team principles...and you'd think they'd know what they're talking about since they know more than all of us

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/88556

Result:
1. Alonso 229
2. Vettel 220
3. Hamilton 196
4. Webber 146
5. Kubica 129
6. Button 86
7. Rosberg 68
8. Hulkenberg 17
. Massa 17
10. Barrichello 11

PLAYLIFE wrote:Alonso voted best driver by team principles...and you'd think they'd know what they're talking about since they know more than all of us

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/88556

Result:
1. Alonso 229
2. Vettel 220
3. Hamilton 196
4. Webber 146
5. Kubica 129
6. Button 86
7. Rosberg 68
8. Hulkenberg 17
. Massa 17
10. Barrichello 11

Obviously they are as much fanboys as the rest of us. That list is shite.
Hulk ahead of Rubens?
Rosberg in 7th?
Massa?

If you compare this list with those from '08 and '09 it pretty much proves that the TP's are as full of shit as we are. LOL.

da silva wrote:

PLAYLIFE wrote:Alonso voted best driver by team principles...and you'd think they'd know what they're talking about since they know more than all of us

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/88556

Result:
1. Alonso 229
2. Vettel 220
3. Hamilton 196
4. Webber 146
5. Kubica 129
6. Button 86
7. Rosberg 68
8. Hulkenberg 17
. Massa 17
10. Barrichello 11

Obviously they are as much fanboys as the rest of us. That list is shite.
Hulk ahead of Rubens?
Rosberg in 7th?
Massa?

If you compare this list with those from '08 and '09 it pretty much proves that the TP's are as full of shit as we are. LOL.

lol

So what person/people's list would you consider to be valid, other than your own?

PLAYLIFE wrote:

da silva wrote:

PLAYLIFE wrote:Alonso voted best driver by team principles...and you'd think they'd know what they're talking about since they know more than all of us

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/88556

Result:
1. Alonso 229
2. Vettel 220
3. Hamilton 196
4. Webber 146
5. Kubica 129
6. Button 86
7. Rosberg 68
8. Hulkenberg 17
. Massa 17
10. Barrichello 11

Obviously they are as much fanboys as the rest of us. That list is shite.
Hulk ahead of Rubens?
Rosberg in 7th?
Massa?

If you compare this list with those from '08 and '09 it pretty much proves that the TP's are as full of shit as we are. LOL.

lol

So what person/people's list would you consider to be valid, other than your own?

Any list that is well thought out and considered will do.

There's not much between Vettel, Hamilton and Alonso this year. If anything Hamilton and Vettel suffered more reliability issues and had to fight their own team mates. Alonso was great in the second half but he had as many brain fades in the early season as the other two had all year.

I'd say:
Vettel
Hamilton
Alonso

Next were the two drivers who comprehensively beat their team mates and made no mistakes of their own. Rosberg and Kubica, the Merc was better early on but the Renault was strong in the second half. Kubica only had to beat Petrov whereas Rosberg had the media circus of Michael in addition to the team changing the car to suit Michael after Nico already scored two podiums.

I'd say:
Rosberg
Kubica

Next we have Webber and Button. Both beaten by their team mates but Webber was in the title hunt all year but he threw it away himself in Korea, but he did face a lot of pressure and the team seemed to favour Vettel. Button did better than I expected, his two wins via strategic thinking were genius but he really lacked pace all year.

I'd say:
Webber
Button

The final three are tough but Barrichello did admirably and his input pushed Williams higher than they would've been without him. Kobayashi continues to impress in wheel to wheel racing but his qualifying needs to be adressed. Glock and Sutil both dominated their team mates especially in qualifying. Massa was underwhelming in the second half of the season after he became a eunuch, understandable. Hulkenberg was no doubt the best rookie of 2010.

I'd say:
Kobayashi
Barrichello
Massa, Hulk, Glock and Sutil.


At least it's reasoned!

da silva wrote:
I'd say:
Vettel
Hamilton
Alonso

Not sure about order (as in, I think it's difficult order them in any way), but yep I do agree they three are in the 'tier 1' category. I thought Alonso was a more complete driver over Lewis this year (speed, mental, etc) so would probably put VET-ALO-HAM.

da silva wrote:
I'd say:
Rosberg
Kubica

Kubica yep, totally agree.
Rosberg did a great job, but difficult to say how well given MS was a poor yardstick. MS didn't really come 'on song' (if he ever did?) so for me there is still questions marks on Nico purely because MS is an unknown quantity....I don't think we can equate MS06 to MS10.

da silva wrote:
I'd say:
Webber
Button

Yup, agree. Delivered well on their days, didn't even show up on others. I think Button fared better than Webber against their respective team-mates though.

da silva wrote:
I'd say:
Kobayashi
Barrichello
Massa, Hulk, Glock and Sutil.

Tough to pick the bottom end, as it was during the races to tip P7-10 every race.

I thought Massa should have delivered more than he did, he should be battling Kubica in the Renault and Rosberg in the Merc for P6 in the WDC. He finished with almost half the points of his team-mate, just like MS from Rosberg.

Sutil did well on his day, as did Rubens, the Hulk, Koba and Alguersuari. Massively over-looked were Glock, Trulli and Kovalainen as it was difficult to tell how well they were doing given their cars.

I'd probably pick:
Barrichello
Sutil or Kobayashi
Kovalainen or Glock.