Singapore Grand Prix 2011, Marina Bay Street Circuit - Race 14/19

I hope a Mclaren or Ferrari can come up with a car to beat Red Bull next year otherwise i might lose interest to be honest. Especially what with it going to Sky as well :(
 
Proper "Noah's Ark" grid. Red Bull 1 and 2, McLaren 3 and 4, Ferrari 5 and 6, Mercedes 7 and 8, Force India 9 and 10....
 
I've decided on a new rule. One set of hards and one set of softs for each team for Quali. Can't be used for anything else. Q1 exiting teams might go with softs since they don't expect to get through which could give us some interesting back end of the grid and top teams would have to do the best they could on the hards in order to save their one set of softs for Q3. Everyone would be in the same boat and there would be no reason not to go out in Q3.
 
CaptainRAVE said:
Vettel is on fire atm, he is easily going to win this. RBR are miles ahead again.
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Vettel is just a fantastic driver. He has moved up a level, compared with last year. His consistency. His ability to turn it on, every time when it counts. He makes beating Webber look very easy and I can tell you, Webber is not a bad driver. It's just that Vettel is "that" good. Courthard, Eddie Jordan, Brundle...all commentators bar none, all wax lyrical about this guy. Yet the OCUK forumites don't rate him. Why...I have no idea.

What will be interesting is that if next year he wins his 3rd title. I would love to hear how the naysayers are going to berate a 3 time World Champion (at the age of 25)

Taken from Wiki:

Vettel is the:
1. youngest Formula One driver to drive at a Grand Prix meeting, at 19 years and 53 days, and on his race debut at the 2007 United States Grand Prix he also became the
2. youngest driver to score championship points. While racing for Toro Rosso, Vettel became the
3. youngest driver to lead a race, at the 2007 Japanese Grand Prix. During qualifying for the 2008 Italian Grand Prix, Vettel became the
4. youngest Formula One driver to secure pole position.[1] He went on to win the race, making him
5. the youngest F1 race winner by nearly a year.[
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He also happens to be the youngest ever World Drivers Champion.

Looking at the stats, the guy is on course to become the most decorated driver ever, in F1. He is achieving more than MSc did, at the same age.

Vettel is everything I believed that Hamilton would become. Unfortunately, Hamilton's reluctance to leave McLaren is now holding him back. While Vettel wins the poles/races/titles, Hamilton just moans about how his car was poor and why he ended up crashing. He has given McLaren 3 years to get their act together and it is clear that they have no strategy in place to deal with their problems. Their only strategy is to do as they have been doing and then hope for the best.

On the subject of F1 being boring. The problem is that Vettel has virtually won the title already, so for this reason, it is no surprise that the Brits are losing interest. I only hope that McLaren or Ferrari can get their act together next year, otherwise, it could be another (relatively) easy Vettel WDC win.
 
When i see vettel fight from the somewhere at the back on race day to take the win i'll agree with you. Until then, while he may be good its nothing special in my eyes
 
sunama said:
Vettel is just a fantastic driver. He has moved up a level, compared with last year. His consistency. His ability to turn it on, every time when it counts. He makes beating Webber look very easy and I can tell you, Webber is not a bad driver. It's just that Vettel is "that" good. Courthard, Eddie Jordan, Brundle...all commentators bar none, all wax lyrical about this guy. Yet the OCUK forumites don't rate him. Why...I have no idea.
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Because this bunch at ocuk think they know more than seasoned professionals and experts, including all the commentators, pundits, race engineers, drivers team owners and mechanics.

You pretty much see it in every thread
 
englishpremier said:
Because this bunch at ocuk think they know more than seasoned professionals and experts, including all the commentators, pundits, race engineers, drivers team owners and mechanics.

You pretty much see it in every thread
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Way to tarnish everyone with the same brush.
 
Jono8 said:
I hope a Mclaren or Ferrari can come up with a car to beat Red Bull next year otherwise i might lose interest to be honest. Especially what with it going to Sky as well :(
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Agreed. I also agree with the BBC team that at least the racing behind RB has been good, but it still makes little difference to me. If it hadn't been for the double diffusers, we would be looking at 3 years of RB dominance. I just don't see anyone catching them until the next rule change.

Would be interested in seeing the viewing figures now - certainly less people following it here and I know lots of friends who have already stopped watching.
 
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Skillmister said:
When i see vettel fight from the somewhere at the back on race day to take the win i'll agree with you. Until then, while he may be good its nothing special in my eyes
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Last year, I will agree that his race craft was terrible.
When not leading on Lap1, he would just get bogged down and settle down in behind a slower driver. When trying to overtake, he would sometimes get it wrong.

However, this year, Vettel has moved forward. Now, even when he is behind a slower driver such as Alonso (yes....Alonso), he is able to overtake him...cleanly and then pull away.

While the likes of Hamilton are making errors and crashing out, Vettel just soldiers on serenely.
While Button is having bad starts and is having to overtake during the race, Vettel just soldiers on serenely.
It is not Vettel's fault that he always nails qualifying laps and he always has great starts.

His speed and consistency are what amaze me. Often when you have such a fast driver, occasionally that driver will get it wrong. The reason for this is that they are closer to the edge of the envelope and there is less margin for error. Vettel is able to get right to the edge of the envelope and make no mistakes. And he seems to do this in almost all the races.
 
sunama said:
He makes beating Webber look very easy and I can tell you, Webber is not a bad driver.
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Funny, in the Pre-season thread you were saying quite the opposite.

sunama said:
However, what we saw last year was Vettel getting rattled by his team-mate. Bear in mind, Webber isn't a particularly great driver, yet he was able to finish very close to Vettel in many races. In some races, he even beat Vettel, on merit/pace.
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It's almost as if Webber's ability fluctuates depending on whether you want to make Vettel look good or bad.

Or from a thread earlier this year about Vettel:

sunama said:
The problem with the above trait is that when he has a car which isn't by far the best, he will struggle badly and is likely to fall behind even the likes of Webber (who I think is an average driver).
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Or Brazil last year:

sunama said:
If a driver like Webber (who is average)
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There are plenty of such quotes littered through your posting history of how Webber isn't that great and is distinctly average etc. etc.
 
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sunama said:
Yet the OCUK forumites don't rate him. Why...I have no idea.
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Because, as people have explained to you time and time again, week after week, they want to see him achieve something greater than simply winning from the front in by far and away the fastest car on the grid before they declare him one of the best.

As I said last time you brought this up, I feel he did more to demonstrate his ability when he was at Toro Rosso than he ever has since joining Red Bull.

This isn't his fault, you wouldn't expect him to do anything else given the machinery he finds himself in but at the same time, it does not prove he is one of the best, merely that he's driving a vastly superior car at the moment.

sunama said:
Looking at the stats, the guy is on course to become the most decorated driver ever, in F1. He is achieving more than MSc did, at the same age.
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Time will tell if this is the case or if his 'ability' suddenly takes a nose dive if the Red Bull no longer happens to be in another class compared to the others.
 
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sunama said:
Last year, I will agree that his race craft was terrible.
When not leading on Lap1, he would just get bogged down and settle down in behind a slower driver. When trying to overtake, he would sometimes get it wrong.

However, this year, Vettel has moved forward. Now, even when he is behind a slower driver such as Alonso (yes....Alonso), he is able to overtake him...cleanly and then pull away.
He's hardly ever behind a slow driver(/car?) so its rare he shows his overtaking moves.
While the likes of Hamilton are making errors and crashing out, Vettel just soldiers on serenely.
He's at the front, less pressure, less outside influence, less mistakes.
While Button is having bad starts and is having to overtake during the race, Vettel just soldiers on serenely.
It is not Vettel's fault that he always nails qualifying laps and he always has great starts.
True. But is that down to Vettel or the car (or both, of course)? I'd love to see one of the other 'top' drivers in Vettels car and see what the deal is.
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The problem with Vettel is that we know he's a good driver, but we have no idea how good. He could be an all time great, or equally he could be a good driver who is just lucky that he's in an all time great car. All we can really say right now is that he is impressive for his age, that he is a bit better than Webber on the bridgestones and a lot better than Webber on the Pirellis.

Where that puts him against the best drivers around right now is something that will hopefully be revealed in years to come.
 
Qually results

Code: 
[b]Pos  Driver                Team                 Time            Gap   [/b]
 1.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault     1m44.381s
 2.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault     1m44.732s   + 0.351
 3.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes     1m44.804s   + 0.423
 4.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes     1m44.809s   + 0.428
 5.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari              1m44.874s   + 0.493
 6.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari              1m45.800s   + 1.419
 7.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes             1m46.013s   + 1.632
 8.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes             no time
 9.  Adrian Sutil          Force India-Mercedes no time
10.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes no time
Q2 cut-off time: 1m47.486s                                  Gap **
11.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari       1m47.616s   + 2.685
12.  Rubens Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth    1m48.082s   + 3.151
13.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Cosworth    1m48.270s   + 3.339
14.  Sebastien Buemi       Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m48.634s   + 3.703
15.  Bruno Senna           Renault              1m48.662s   + 3.731
16.  Jaime Alguersuari     Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m49.862s   + 4.931
17.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari       No time
Q1 cut-off time: 1m49.588s                                    Gap *
18.  Vitaly Petrov         Renault              1m49.835s   + 3.438
19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Lotus-Renault        1m50.948s   + 4.551
20.  Jarno Trulli          Lotus-Renault        1m51.012s   + 4.615
21.  Timo Glock            Virgin-Cosworth      1m52.154s   + 5.757
22.  Jerome D'Ambrosio     Virgin-Cosworth      1m52.363s   + 5.966
23.  Daniel Ricciardo      HRT-Cosworth         1m52.404s   + 6.007
24.  Tonio Liuzzi          HRT-Cosworth         1m52.810s   + 6.413
 
Kenai said:
There are plenty of such quotes littered through your posting history of how Webber isn't that great and is distinctly average etc. etc.
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:D

Don't expect a reply even though you have him bang to rights, I've stated the same in the JB to ferrari thread and a few weeks ago.

I've noticed a trend where he latches on to whoever looks good and bangs on about it. not just in F1. In boxing threads he has proclaimed one boxer to be the 'best' despite then claiming to only have read about them and never seen them fight. Or read some of the stuff on Federer only for Federer to then fall apart.:D

I will eat a my hat if he isn't a Man United supporter.

It was Hamilton before, then Alonso was past it, then he was the daddy and now again this year he's struggling it's vettel.

Hopefully this kiss of death will continue ;)
 
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