Soldato
True. It'd be nice to see them not driving around at the back though
F1 2019 - News & Rumours
- Thread starter Kanpai
- Start date
Soldato
If rumours are to be believed they've found the reason for their poor performance last year, which was due to the way the turning of the front wheels affected the aero around the side and rear of the car when going through corners. They've apparently known this since the middle of last season, but decided not to bother designing and building a new chassis for last year and instead concentrate on getting a head-start on the 2019 car. It's feasible they could jump back to the mid-field, but I have my doubts. Especially if their wind tunnel is still not giving reliable real-world results.
Soldato
Williams engineers and drivers wave hello!
Soldato
Soldato
But the Man Utd players always had the capabilities whereas Vettel does not. He's just not good enough and that is or was not Arrivabene's fault, and nothing he could do would change that. Vettel will not win the WDC and will leave at the end of the year either from being sacked or from mental implosion due to being being beaten by his new younger teammate.
Stroll will have a tough time but think he's better than 99% of the world give him credit for. And the 'Daddy' stuff is getting very tiring.
Soldato
I disagree about Vettel’s capabilities being insufficient. I don’t think he’s at Hamilton’s level but he’s a very capable driver and a 3 times WDC. He had a tough year last year, but who knows what pressure was being heaped on him by the team management or what else was going on. Both driver and team were visibly culpable in 2018.
His head in the sand approach to obvious failings made him easy to laugh at in 2018, but he still has the ability to mount a serious challenge this year.
Agreed on the Daddy Stroll thing. Plenty of other drivers have had parental support to get to and continue in F1 - this parent just happens to own a team and if you do then why wouldn’t you put your son in there. Stroll clearly isn’t the quickest driver out there at the moment but we’ve seen plenty worse.
Soldato
Vettel is a 4 times WDC
But I agree that Vettel is more than capable in the Ferrari, he's just terrible under any sort of pressure. His results last season show that. Ferrari's decision making didn't help him much either.I'm hoping Stroll can prove me wrong and can be successful but I'm not happy that it came at the cost of Ocon though.
Soldato
You see? All this over the top negativity about Vettel has made me overlook one of his championships!
It was a shame about Ocon, but that is F1. He needs a good year out of F1 and, unfortunately, now also a little luck too. If Bottas has a much improved year supporting either Hamilton or Mercedes or both to their respective championships, or has a good shot at the WDC himself, then Mercedes will be compelled to go with better the devil you know. Ocon could then always wait another year, but two years is a long time out of F1, and there's a real trend to try and sign the next teenage wunderkind at the moment - an era when a driver in their early 20s is overlooked.
It was a shame about Ocon, but that is F1. He needs a good year out of F1 and, unfortunately, now also a little luck too. If Bottas has a much improved year supporting either Hamilton or Mercedes or both to their respective championships, or has a good shot at the WDC himself, then Mercedes will be compelled to go with better the devil you know. Ocon could then always wait another year, but two years is a long time out of F1, and there's a real trend to try and sign the next teenage wunderkind at the moment - an era when a driver in their early 20s is overlooked.
Mercedes wouldn't have had this trouble if they'd taken the chance on Ocon when Rosberg retired. To an extent they've brought this on themselves. Ferrari have a junior team (or two), Red Bull have a junior team, only Mercedes doesn't have one, just engine customers who both want to do their own thing.
Soldato
Yep, can't disagree with that. Toto was also very conflicted in the decision making.
Vettel is a 4 times WDC
I remember in 2017 how smiling and happy Vettel had been just before the August summer break - after the summer break he was nervous and not the same person.
2018 repeated - relatively good start of the season till Germany where he failed terribly and actually lost the championship, and after that total disaster with Hamilton doing everything he wanted.
So, what exactly was Vettel pressured for?
Soldato
Oh, I don't know. Maybe:
- spinning off every time he gave another car the slightest touch
- bumping into too many other cars
- poor tactics and strategy from his team
- being slower than Hamilton despite often Vettel having the faster car on the weekend
- poor self-management, refusing to acknowledge problems and building up his own personal pressure
- pretty much every second of the German grand prix after the first drop of rain fell
- feeling humiliated in front of the home fans at Monza
Soldato
I think that covers it. His main issue, for me, was that he started making more and more rash moves to try and make up ground from either a bad start or poor qualifying (Monza, Suzuka, CoTA) instead of taking his time.
You are completely contradicting yourself in your own post.
You say Vettel is a very capable driver, and that it was the team that let him down in 2018, not that he folded up completely under a minutiae of pressure.
Yet you then say every other capable number one can cope with any amount of pressure even when it comes without success.
6 out of 7 of your points are only controlled by the driver, the team has zero influence over how a driver reacts to pressure.
Looking back over his entire career Vettel has always buckled under pressure, it was just that when the team he was with was dominant, he never had any real pressure to deal with, the car would always get him out of trouble.
You will say that shows that the team does have influence, in that if they give him a decent car he will shine, but so will any driver, the only true show of a drivers genius and capability, is how they deal with a sub par car, and make it outperform where it should be on the grid, I cannot think of any point in his career where Vettel has routinely done that.
Soldato
Not at all, I'm saying the both team and driver underperformed in 2018, but that doesn't mean that either should be written off as there are past examples of when they've been successful.
Soldato
https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/1...5W9uqBv_jZpZQhgnVOqTgJ7Rd3dooKhyY4oQQ63-LZ1lw
More changes at McLaren. One wonders just how much quality progress was made on the 2019 car in the absence of some of these leadership roles in the second half of 2018. Potentially more progress, given how dysfunctional McLaren appear to be at times, but we'll see soon enough.
More changes at McLaren. One wonders just how much quality progress was made on the 2019 car in the absence of some of these leadership roles in the second half of 2018. Potentially more progress, given how dysfunctional McLaren appear to be at times, but we'll see soon enough.
There were rumours that Binotto was not given the budget mid season to bring these changes which further validates the drop in performance.
Soldato
My post was replying to MissChief and timmeh who were talking about McLaren, not Ferrari 
My post was replying to MissChief and timmeh who were talking about McLaren, not Ferrari
My bad, but the point still stands for Ferrari too
