Third Driver of the Weekend win for Vettel

2013 German Grand Prix

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Sebastian Vettel kept himself on the top of the drivers’ championship with a home win at the Nurburgring.

The Red Bull driver saw off a stern challenge from both Lotus drivers. The trio all appeared in your top three picks for Driver of the Weekend – but it was the Red Bull racer who came out on top.

1.Sebastian Vettel

Started: 2nd
Finished: 1st

A clean start allowed Vettel to pass Lewis Hamilton for the lead at the first corner. He came under pressure from Grosjean after the first Safety Car period – particularly when his KERS failed – then his focus switched to keeping Raikkonen behind.

A resolute performance under pressure yielded a well deserved win at home which put the crowd on their feet.

Great qualifying, great start, kept two faster cars at bay for the entire race and held his own under immense pressure (including a KERS failure) to take his first home win. Fantastic job.
@Mnm101

Of course it’s Vettel. Out-qualified Webber who is exceptionally strong on this track, had a flawless race, had a great start, with quick overtaking when needed, and was very composed under pressure.
Lance (@lancelot)

There was a barely a lap when he wasn’t under pressure and he didn’t put a foot wrong. Great drive from Grosjean but ultimately Vettel was the better man on the day than the two Lotus cars.
Safeeuropeanhome (@Debaser91)

2.Romain Grosjean

Started: 5th
Finished: 3rd

Grosjean equalled his best result of the year, having also finished third in Bahrain. Key to his race was a long opening stint on the soft tyres which brought him into contention for victory before his chances were compromised by the Safety Car.

After that he was told to give up second place to his team mate but he resisted pressure from Fernando Alonso to secure third place.

Qualified well and was narrowly beaten by Raikkonen. Had a great start and showed consistent and fast pace throughout the race. He did all he could to bring the fight to Vettel and if it wasn’t for the team’s strategy he would have finished a close second.
@Colossal-Squid

He is now under pressure in all the weekends and in this weekend he did well, after being in contention for the win, with similar pace to Raikkonen and a good qualifying, let’s not forget, until he was affected by team orders (once again).
The_Sigman (@sigman1998)

3. Kimi Raikkonen

Started: 4th
Finished: 2nd

Raikkonen climbed two places during the race but narrowly fell short of beating Vettel for the win. He lost some time behind the Mercedes during the first stint but passed both on track after which the Safety Car allowed him to close on the leaders. Grosjean let him by into second after which he closed on Vettel.

Clean and two extraordinary overtakes on both Mercedes.
Crazy.Mechanic (@Akshay)

2013 Driver of the Weekend results

RaceFirstSecondThird
Australian Grand PrixKimi Raikkonen (51.2%)Adrian Sutil (17.9%)Jules Bianchi (13.6%)
Malaysian Grand PrixMark Webber (34.2%)Sebastian Vettel (17.4%)Nico Rosberg (13.6%)
Chinese Grand PrixFernando Alonso (47.0%)Daniel Ricciardo (18.2%)Kimi Raikkonen (15.6%)
Bahrain Grand PrixSebastian Vettel (32.2%)Paul di Resta (17.8%)Fernando Alonso (11.9%)
Spanish Grand PrixFernando Alonso (61.4%)Felipe Massa (10.8%)Kimi Raikkonen (10.5%)
Monaco Grand PrixNico Rosberg (54.3%)Adrian Sutil (22.2%)Kimi Raikkonen (9.6%)
Canadian Grand PrixSebastian Vettel (36.8%)Fernando Alonso (24.6%)Jean-Eric Vergne (14.0%)
British Grand PrixLewis Hamilton (52.5%)Mark Webber (18.4%)Fernando Alonso (10.2%)
German Grand PrixSebastian Vettel (39.2%)Romain Grosjean (27.6%)Kimi Raikkonen (15.9%)

2013 German Grand Prix

    Browse all 2013 German Grand Prix articles

    Image © Red Bull/Getty

    53 comments on “Third Driver of the Weekend win for Vettel”

    1. Grosjean has impressively the best ratio for second place in the DOTW poll of the year for his first entry, as Raikkonen entered the top 3 five times with one win, and Vettel made it four times including three wins.

      1. I hate how often he’s affected by team-orders though. Every time Raikkonen is behind Grosjean has to give it up. Funny how no one whines about Lotus use of team orders when they’re way more frequently used than even Ferrari. Such a shame. Not to mention the 2nd rate car he often gets.

        1. Probably it’s because Kimi is popular.

      2. Yep, unless people actually like team orders? I happen to think the row was kicked up only because Vettel was involved, but when he ignored them there was uproar. Lotus use them frequently – no-one cares.

    2. How is wish Lotus could get Kimi ‘s strategy right for once. He always ended up losing positions after 1st pit stop called either due to slow pit stop or wrong call and stuck behind traffic.

      Silverstone when the team didn’t react to fernando ‘s undercut attempt while Kimi was in front and keep him longer on the track. Instead they pitted Grosjean that was behind Alonso eventually when bypass Kimi after he pitted. And didn;t pit him under the SC when kimi question their decision. I bet they didn’t know that the delta time in SC only cost 10 sec for pit stop eventually.

      Nurburgring, pitted kimi right in the middle of traffic when his option stint was clearly faster than those on medium behind.

      Its weird that the team compromised their no.1 driver’s strategy while giving their no.2 the better strategy.

      1. typo error

        is = i*

      2. I can’t agree more! They really need to have more competent people on their strategy team as they either go for extremely risky or extremely cautious strategies for Kimi. And what is this their obsession trying to pit one time less? If you are kind on your tyres you might also use to push harder but pit the same number of times if that can be faster!! Seriously you can’t sell the unused tyres!!

      3. It’s very easy to call the strategy after the race has finished. Particularly if you overlook the radio problems the team was having during the race.

        And complaining about how Lotus treated Raikkonen when for the second race in a row they had his team mate let him past is rather funny.

        1. Not to mention Kimi mouthing off his engineer for not understanding him because of a technical issue.

          1. Imagine the flak Vettel would take on this website if he made comments like that on the radio…

            RAI drove a pretty good race and a couple of clever overtakes but ultimately he failed. Some people seem willing to award DOW to somebody for what they *might* have done, not what they did.

            Just look at the British Grand Prix. VET got zero credit for almost winning the race, barring the gearbox failure. WEB got 2nd place for NOT winning the race, and qualifying behind VET, who was in contention for victory with or without HAM’s tire failure. And HAM won DOW in 4th with a bunch of “would/could” comments from fans.

            1. I agree with the first comment, but you say people are willing to award DOTW on what the driver *might* have done, but wouldn’t awarding Vettel DOTW for the British GP be going on what he *might* have done as well, as “ultimately he failed” as you put it? Wasn’t Hamilton in contention for the win when he had his tyre failure? It just seems a bit contradictory to me. I voted Hamilton for that race, but Vettel was my 2nd choice, as Hamilton was on pole by half a second, gained a good gap on Vettel, and had a very good recovery drive to 4th.

        2. It is true that hindsight is a luxury we seldom have in life. However, Lotus’s blunders is strategy are so catastrophic that it is hard to justify (eg when following a car on similar tyre age, if safety car comes in and your rival dives in to pit, you follow suit rather than become a sitting duck for him when the SC pulls out out). if a fan like myself with only TV reporting and a live lap time can make the right call (or at least not the disastrous one they made in each of those occasions), surely one can do a much better job with the extra info and simulation software that they have at their disposal in the pit wall.

        3. That is the whole point why people complain. In both races Kimi was ahead and fast before the first pitstops.

          The only reason Kimi landed up behind Grosjean was because of Lotus’s incompetence with their pit strategies. This has got nothing to do with hindsight or working radio’s. Anyone who was really looking at live timing could see what was happening in these past two races. If Lotus had given Kimi proper strategies from the start then he would never have been behind Grosjean in the first place. It is highly frustrating to watch, Kimi qualifies ahead, he fast in his fist stint, but still Lotus finds a way for Kimi to lose positions. I hope Lotus has learned their lesson from these past two races.

        4. There’s no need for Team Order if the team can get his strategy right.

          if they can do that for Romain, why not for their so call no.1 driver??

        5. @keith

          Its common sense to pit when the car behind you trying to undercut.

          A no brain-er really.

    3. Hard to justify picking anyone else but Vettel he was certainly pushed this time around nevertheless he pushed everything out of that car.

    4. I hope for his own sake that Grosjean remains on that level of form: his performances have been far too sporadic for a driver in a top team.

      Excellent performance from Vettel also: he didn’t let the pressure get to him and held his nerve beautifully.

      1. his performances have been far too sporadic for a driver in a top team.

        That’s correct, but don’t forget he’s got only 35 starts in F1 (5 podiums). Massa is still disturbing.

        1. @jeff1s absolutely and I’ll give him the benefit of time to see if he can iron out his faults but I fear he won’t :(

          As for Massa, could not agree more. It is depressing that a team with the heritage of Ferrari would persistently re-hire someone who unquestionably does not deserve to be there; above all else Massa’s continual presence means there is one less potential world champion in the ranks.

          It’s sad to say this as I think pre-accident Massa was world championship material, but he’s never been there since. Time to retire old friend.

          1. On the subject of Massa, I really do have sympathy for the guy. Every time it seems like he’s found his form again, he crashes into the barriers for four weeks in a row.

            I’m a bit biased towards Ferrari (read: very) and would like to think that he’s still there because they have faith and loyalty in a driver that has done so well in the past. Even if he’s making life easy for Alonso, at this stage Felipe’s actually hurting Alonso’s chances by not taking points off his rivals. So maybe I’m right! :)

      2. I hope so not just for his own sake but also for all the fans, the more great performing drivers competing the better! I just hope that we won’t be seeing have to let Kimi past every time!

    5. Vettel’s winning percentages are in the 30s, no matter how well he drives or how much he dominates the weekend. Other drivers got considerably higher scores for, at best, similar performances.

      1. @ironcito it’s pretty bad, isn’t it? I absolutely agree that Alonso thoroughly deserved his winning percentage for Spain but on the flip-side I think Vettel’s performance in Canada was very much equivalent, if not more impressive simply for the fact he was on the limit like no other driver has been before or since this season.

        1. @ironcito @vettel1 You’re making the same mistake as @magon4 below of treating the percentages as simple scores of how well the each performed – they aren’t, they are influenced by how well their rivals did.

          Perhaps in future I should just publish the winner and leave it at that?

          1. @keithcollantine i don’t think it can be denied that there is an ant-Vettel bias from people who vote in this. Even with your argument, it is very obvious that Vettel has a hard time getting votes, compared to other drivers. I personally think this is due to the often wrong impression that Vettel should always win since he has the best car, but people give Mark Webber or anyone who wins the racer of the weekend almost automatically. I guess if Fernando had won as many races as Seb in the last few years, he would also have it difficult to get votes…

            1. I think that this year has shown that Vettel does far better in the polls when he is not just winning from the first spot almost without seeming to have to push. He has been voted DotR 3 times now and got voted 2nd in a 4th race. That is more than any other driver, and I would say he deserved it. Maybe its time to let go of your “poor Vettel, he gets ignored” emotions by now.

              He has won it 3 times now in races where he had a real fight on his hands to get on the top step (and second in a race where the sympathy vote went to his teammate). That is the kind of driving most fans reward with their votes. That Vettel did not get the vote more often in the past can well be down to him not having such a tough job of it (AbuDhabi 2012 he got a good vote too from getting on the podium from the pitlane).

          2. @keithcollantine I can see the point, however I don’t think that holds a large enough influence to cause a near 25% difference between two very similar sets of circumstances. I can see where you’re coming from though and accept that as a contributing factor.

            On the second part though, no I don’t really think that’d change the picture awfully, but what would be pretty nice (if possible of course) is if we could vote for our top 3 i.e. 1st gets 3 points, 2nd 2 & 3rd 1. I think that would make the remaining “podium” slots much more representative and interesting!

          3. @keithcollantine So what can Vettel do to get 60% of the votes? If he wins by half a second after being challenged for the lead, the driver who challenged him gets the credit. If he wins by a minute and utterly dominates the entire weekend, he doesn’t get credit because he wasn’t challenged and just coasted to victory. Now switch places. If another driver wins after being challenged by Vettel, the other driver gets credit for holding Vettel at bay. If another driver wins by a minute after dominating the weekend, everyone praises him. So yes, it’s a problem with Vettel in particular.

          4. @magon4

            I personally think this is due to the often wrong impression that Vettel should always win since he has the best car

            I think there’s probably some truth in that – I think it’s far more constructive to have a debate about what Vettel’s achieved and its value rather than accusing people en masse of being “biased” against him.

            @ironcito

            So what can Vettel do to get 60% of the votes?

            Win a race on a day when others aren’t perceived to have done as well as they have during previous races he has won.

      2. Don’t forget Malaysia… so the 4 races Seb wins, he gets 17, 32, 36 and 39%, i.e despite winning around 2/3 of people didn’t think he did the best job! (and over 4/5 did think he did the best job in Malaysia!)
        Also, weird how when Vettel doesn’t win, he’s not in the top 3 on any poll, despite obvious good races like Silverstone and Monaco

        1. @ironcito @vettel1 @91jb12
          Perhaps, but I don’t really think that the exact percentage really matters. Some people might have known that Vettel was going to win DOTW, so they would vote for a driver they thought did a great job, who they would like to have seen in 2nd or 3rd in the poll. That doesn’t mean that the remaining ~60% wouldn’t have acknowledged that Vettel wasn’t the best or one of the best drivers of the weekend.

          1. Corrections:
            “vote for another driver they thought”

            “doesn’t mean that all of the remaining”

          2. @david-a But they don’t do the same when someone else wins. It’s Vettel specifically.

            1. @ironcito that’s the sole reason why I don’t think it can be fully explained through what Keith is suggesting. Sure it can contribute but from looking at the statistics over the past few seasons it would appear that there must be other factors. The reason that @girts raises is also a very probable contributer for the “negative bias”.

      3. Yeah, I’ve noticed that too. No matter how well he drivers or how flawless he is, he’s in the 30s, while other drivers win the polls easily even with inferior performances. Makes the bias against him pretty obvious.
        Pity. He’s such a great driver.

      4. You know what, I’m just gonna say it: why do you care so much about Vettel getting the acknowledgement he deserves? Since I started watching in ±2000, I’ve been a massive Trulli fan, but the things he’s most famous for now are 1) driving slowly in front of other cars; 2) moaning about power steering. And quite frankly I don’t care about what other people think, because I know for myself that Trulli’s a great driver – and that’s enough for me.

        You know Vettel is a great driver, why do you need other people to have the same opinion?

        1. @andae23 In general, I don’t care. I find it rude when they boo at him, when they cheer at his retirements, and so on, but other than that, everyone is entitled to their opinion. That said, I still find it interesting to discuss why so many people hate him, as I see no reason for it.

          1. Hate tends to be irrational. I’ve never come across a lot of anti-Vettel posts that moved beyond gut feelings, the same kind which prevent me from fully embracing his personality.

          2. As a Brit I feel seriously embarrassed by the attitude my countrymen in digital media as well as the attitude in Silverstone. The only consolation is that the British driver that most Vettel-haters route for is dark-skinned, otherwise this chauvinism would have been beyond disconcerting.

            I am a hard-core Kimi fan as the comment above might suggest. That being said, Vettel is a great driver and despite having achieved a lot is still working hard to improve and this is laudable. He would be mature in a couple of years and probably would be really unbeatable. But I just don’t see how he has “bad” personality? Despite his immense success he is humble and fun guy in my opinion, but more important he never had done disgraceful things like lying to the stewards that somebody blocked him (as Lewis did in Australia 2009), or despite huge rivalry with Mark do something like Fernando in Hungary 2007 (blocking Lewis).

        2. @andae23 – I don’t see what’s wrong with pointing out clear negative bias towards a certain driver? @ironcito didn’t try shove his opinion down your throat, he just commented on how he personally interprets this season’s DOTW results. What’s the point in having opinions if you can’t discuss them?

          1. What’s the point in having opinions if you can’t discuss them?

            @tmekt Well nothing of course, but in general I get the feeling that in discussions with the topic ‘Vettel is underrated’, it’s more a matter of proving a point than arguing, which more often than not ends in personal attacks once the opponents have understood none of them are willing to change opinions – I mean, this isn’t the Youtube comments section.

            Re-reading my comment, I do apologize to @ironcito as my comment wasn’t intended to be a response / attack to your comment and I hope you haven’t taken it the wrong way. Just replace the word ‘you’ with ‘people’, my bad.

        3. @andae23 @ironcito In my opinion, Vettel gets less votes simply because his victories doesn’t surprise anyone and because Red Bull is considered to have been the best car since 2010. You might claim that this is not the case and that Red Bull wouldn’t have won as many races and titles with someone else behind the wheel and you might even be right but it’s impossible to prove that. In fact, it’s also impossible to be 100% sure that Vettel was better than Ricciardo or di Resta at the Nurburgring because they all were driving different cars. One could even argue that Webber might have beaten Vettel if not for that infamous pit stop.

          I personally voted for Vettel this time but I don’t vote for him every time when he has won the race. There are hundreds of reasons why people make different choices and I can’t see any signs that a lot of voters would be lead by irrational hatred. Moreover, it’s just a poll, not a deep technical analysis performed by race engineers so the results should never be taken too seriously. I could partly understand why there were complaints about lack of recognition for Vettel’s achievements in 2011 but I really don’t think that relatively lower winning percentages prove that fans have something against Vettel.

        4. @andae23 it’s not really anything to do with Vettel per say, it’s just I simply wish to gather insight into other people’s logic processes if they seem alien to me! Naturally I try to be as unbiased as possible and so acknowledged the fact that for example Alonso was best in Spain (however, on that occasion I voted for Rosberg as he received almost no recognition for what I thought was a solid second-best performance at least. Clearly it wasn’t enough though!). Hence why I find it confusing that when Vettel does almost the same (arguably better) in Canada (he achieved pole position unlike Alonso who was only 5th in Spain and notably only 0.001 ahead of Massa) he receivers far more little recognition on face value (we’ve established some of the reasons behind that though). So it’s interesting to be enlightened as to how others have thought of events.

          To clarify, I am not referencing Germany in any way as I could make a strong case for rating either of the Lotus drivers top also but it wouldn’t be sincere as by my own admition I never rate a losing teammate above their more successful compatriot bar mitigating circumstances (such as being hindered through no fault of their own). That said, in a loose sense you could define being told to move over as being hindered but irrespective of that Kimi was just faster at the end of the race!

      5. I think it’s a combination of personal dislike and expectations for a lot of people. I’ve really warmed up to Vettel the past 2 years (despite the Multi21 affair) both as a personality and especially as a driver. If he wins, I personally have come to expect that, while Romain Grosjean challenging him for the win really catches my eye as a good performance. Vettel has, by far, the highest percentage of wins post 2010, so it’s less ‘impressive’ as a stand alone occasion, I guess.

        That, and he inherited the people who talked BS about Schumacher’s talent before. There’s a large group of people online who would not give Vettel the time of day if he won the German GP in a Andrea Moda.

      6. Look at the 2011 DOTW polls! Vettel getting less percentages is ok. In 2011, he wasn’t even in the top 3 in spite of winning over half the races.

    6. Loudy Knicker
      22nd July 2013, 14:35

      I’d give Third Driver of the Weekend to Speedy Gonzalez, for beating Alonso in first practice.

    7. adding up all percentages of the top 3, this would be the current picture of the 2013 season:

      1. ALO 155,1
      2. VET 125,6
      3. RAI 102,8
      4. ROS 67,9
      5. WEB 52,6
      6. HAM 52,5
      7. SUT 40,1
      8. GRO 27,6
      9. RIC 18,2
      10. DIR 17,8
      11. JEV 14,0
      12. BIA 13,6
      13. MAS 10,8

      1. @magon4 You’re treating the data as if each score was an individual rating of a driver’s performance. But it’s not – it’s strongly influenced by how well the other drivers did in each grand prix. It’s not as if people are being asked to give each driver a rating out of five, they’re just picking the single best driver. So while I appreciate your effort I don’t think this tells us anything.

        1. Surely you are right, but it does give info to some extent. A high percentage means more agreement among voters, which means the choice was clearer. That can be down to two factors: there was only one obvious choice because he was so good or others didn’t really shine. In any case, it does paint some kind of picture.
          Btw, maybe it would be interesting to try out a 0-5 grading system after each race for each driver, just for data purposes… would be interesting to see the averages of f1fanatics!

      2. That would be as if you would construct the championship table by adding the drivers race times @magon4.

        If you just add rankings, and give points like we have in the championship, then its tight between Vettel and Alonso, with Webber and Rosberg almost tied for 3rd. We could also count 1st, 2nd and 3rd places and give it to the one with the best (lowest) number – that would be a Vettel win, or we could try and see what happens when we multiply ranking with % value.

        Off course we can count things up any way we want, but it really is of no consequence.
        Fact remains, Vettel was voted the best driver in 3 weekends, more than any other driver so far this year. And that reflects his driving pretty well this year, I would think.

    8. More people thought a Lotus driver should be DOW than Vettel.

      It would be nice to have instant runoff voting instead of winner takes all. Like somebody else said, let people give a 1,2,3 ranked choice. Then apply the instant runoff algorithm. Potentially in this race a lot of people who put GRO or RAI first had RAI or GRO as 2nd. It would give a clearer picture of what fans are thinking.

    9. Out if curiosity, I applied a 3,2,1 scoring system for the podium positions for each race and here are the consequent “drivers standings”:

      1st – Sebastian Vettel: 11
      2nd – Fernando Alonso: 10
      3rd – Kimi Räikkönen: 7
      4th – Mark Webber 5
      5th – Nico Rosberg: 4 (1 win)
      6th – Adrian Sutil: 4
      7th – Lewis Hamilton: 3
      8th – Daniel Ricciardo: 2 (Rnd 3)
      8th – Paul Di Resta: 2 (Rnd 4)
      8th – Felipe Massa:2 (Rnd 5)
      8th – Romain Grosjean: 2 (Rnd 9)
      12th – Jules Bianchi: 1 (Rnd 1)
      13th – Jean-Eric Vergne: 1 (Rnd 7)

      And the constructor’s championship:

      1st – Red Bull Racing: 16
      2nd – Scuderia Ferrari: 12
      3rd – Lotus F1 Team: 9
      4th – Mercedes AMG Petronas: 7
      5th – Sahara Force India: 6
      6th – Scuderia Toro Rosso: 3
      7th – Marussia F1 Team: 1

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