Why are people saying the Red Bull isn't the best car this year, its been close between the top three teams all year. When the Red Bull has been out front, its been utterly, by a mile ridiculously far ahead. Vettel was ridiculously faster than everyone last week, he could have cruised IN QUALIFYING and still gotten pole and he did cruise in the race. Valencia, where he got a DNF, he still had by a freaking enourmous margin the best car.
Mclaren has had their races but, when he was last leading and the car crapped out on him, was he 15-20 seconds ahead (or on that pace ignoring safety cars).
The races the Red Bull has been awesome its been completely unbeatable, 3 second longer pitstop wouldn't matter, spins, no problem. Outside of failure they haven't been beatable. The few races Ferrari have been the best car in race pace, they haven't had a significant margin and a single bad pitstop could have taken plenty of points off them. Mclaren have rarely had a significantly faster car, and bad pitstops have taken dozens of points off them.
Up till Mclarens run of 4 races where the car was quite obviously the best, they weren't for the majority of races before that, and certainly weren't last weekend either.
Anyway, its too early to claim a "best car" if Vettel wins the every race from now till the end of the season with a 15+ second winning margin... it will be hard to argue he didn't have the best car.
Been an odd year with no consistency at all in terms of finishing.
Vettel had 3 or 4 races max outside the top 2 last season, Hamilton only had 5 races below a 6th(3 retirements) and 6 podiums, year before he only had 4 races outside the top 6(3 retirements), 9 podiums.
This season, Alonso 8 podiums, only 4 races below a 5th, 2 of those retirements. Vettel 6 podiums, 3 races below a top 6(one of those retirements). Hamilton 6 podiums, 7 races outside the top 6(3 retirements).
I'm looking on
http://www.formula1.com/results/driver/2012/828.html which really does it by classification rather than retirement but it won't change much.
The Mclaren is the "worst" car when its been bad, the Red Bull/Ferrari have made noticeably more points when the car hasn't been capable of a podium than Mclaren, the Ferrari has been the least capable of winning, but the most capable of a top 3 finish.
Also I can't be sure but Vettel and Alonso have won races due to being 2nd or lower and cars infront failing.. not sure Hamilton has had that happen yet.
