Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, Monza, 2020

Vettel says there were ‘fights I shouldn’t have picked” at Ferrari

2020 F1 season

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Sebastian Vettel says he has failed to win a world championship since leaving Red Bull partly because there were “fights that maybe I shouldn’t have picked” during his time at Ferrari.

Earlier this year Ferrari revealed the four-times world champion, who joined them in 2015, will leave them at the end of the season.

Vettel said he doesn’t have any regrets about his departure from the team, but admitted: “I have failed because I set myself the mission or the target to win the championship with Ferrari.”

“There’s things that I should have done better,” he said in an interview for the official F1 website. “Things that maybe I should have seen earlier, fights that maybe I shouldn’t have picked. But then again, I think everything that happened brought me to where I am now.

“I’m generally not talking about the stuff that happens on the track. Losing the car in Hockenheim in sort of half-wet, half-dry conditions – many people point that one out as a low point. But I’m not talking about things like that, I’m more talking about what’s been going on.

“So if I’m fair and harsh, then I have failed. Were there reasons? Probably, yes. But I don’t accept them as excuses so whatever happened also, I guess, put me on the next step forward and next level to focus on.”

Vettel said he had picked fights which “maybe, looking back, they weren’t worth fighting.

“But then again part of it is probably my nature and it was natural to do so. And I think I had a point as well in some of these some of these little fights and battles, whatever. But I think ultimately that’s how you mature and how you learn.”

After leaving Ferrari, Vettel will join Racing Point, which is to be rebranded as Aston Martin for the 2021 F1 season. He said team owner Lawrence Stroll convinced him to make the move.

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“I think the fact [is] that the team is growing. [There’s] a lot of factors. So I think those boxes were quite easy to tick in terms of the performance, the racing side of things. Where the team is, where the team might be, the potential and so on.

“But more so, I think it was the mindset and the will to really do something good, bring something good together. And it sounds like a fun project and something that ultimately I decided I want to be part of. So it is very different to Ferrari.

“Obviously Racing Point as it stands today and in the future Aston Martin will be growing, there will be a lot of things happening for the first time. I think it’s an incredible, challenging journey for the whole team and me joining I hope I can contribute a lot of things and do good in the car and outside the car.”

Vettel scored his most recent victory at the Singapore Grand Prix over a year ago. It was the 53rd win of his career, which makes him the third most successful Formula 1 driver of all time in terms of grand prix victories, behind Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton.

However Vettel said “I’m not sure I’m proud of that” statistic.

“It’s not fair if you compare to the past because they have way fewer races than us today,” he explained. “So it’s a bit fake in my opinion.

“They did a lot of races, probably in other categories. So you have to add those as well. But they’re not grands prix so I get the statistics.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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60 comments on “Vettel says there were ‘fights I shouldn’t have picked” at Ferrari”

  1. So the Ferrari snake pit. Vettel tried the schummi approach, taking on every aspect of the race organisations. The difference is he had some excellent partners and vet only fought ego’s. It’s good for him to find an enthousiast team with realistic goals.
    Let’s hope lec survives and stays out of politics.

    1. You sum it up perfectly. After Schummi, Ferrari organization only need youngster who only fight on the track and didn’t care about politics like Leclerc. But it’s also mean Ferrari didn’t bother to build a good chemistry needed to be great again.

    2. Looking back to Maurizio Arrivabene’s comments in 2016, when he publicly told Vettel to “focus on the driving” (as opposed to giving too much interest on other aspects of the team); I get the impression that Seb’s approach was ultimately closer to that of Heinz-Herald Frentzen’s, than Michael Schumacher’s.

      I remember backin 2002/2003, I read an article where one engineer who worked with him commented that, Frentzen does give good feedback; but sometimes, he gets too involved that he ends up acting like he’s the designer.

      I agree with you that Schumacher had with him like minded partners during his time at Ferrari — something that is often overlooked by people, when judging the stints of his successors in Maranello. Jeand Todt and Ross Brawn were as equally focused and professional as Michael, which gave them synergy and allowed them to be the best in their given expertise.

  2. It would be interesting to see what would people think of Vettel if the Aston Martin/Vettel combo will work in the future and (a big maybe) he starts winning races and wins his 5th title.

    1. I’d not bet against Vettel being able to get podiums with the 3rd fastest car on the grid. Wins will definitely be possible…

      Public opinion won’t need a 5th championship to change, couple of wins a year will suffice.

    2. It’s not realistic to win a title in any car but mercedes, even for a top driver, let alone vettel.

  3. I don’t know what fights is he talking about, but it’s nice to see someone acknowledging the difference between motivations and excuses, regardless of this particular context

    1. I read that as meaning he tried to change the Ferrari organization/way of working but didn’t manage to.

  4. I’m guessing he picked fights regarding Leclerc’s role within the team … which didn’t go down well considering that he’s failed to live up to the benchmarks expected of a Ferrari #1 driver.

    1. @todfod Maybe but I really get the impression he’s talking about earlier than Leclerc’s arrival and over other issues to do with the team’s organization and development.

      1. @david-br

        Honestly, how much can he complain about the team’s organisation and development?

        In 2015, he had the 2nd best car on the grid and the team maximised their opportunities that year. In 2016, Ferrari dropped the ball and so did Vettel in terms of performance. In 2017, they had a genuine title contender, and again, Ferrari made some mistakes but Vettel probably made more.

        In 2018, Ferrari was the first team to produce a car that was as good, or even better, than Mercedes in the hybrid era. Needless to say that Vettel failed that year.. so nothing to complain about again. In 2019 Ferrari produced the 2nd fastest car on the grid and Vettel was absolutely smashed by his new teammate in terms of performance. Leclerc took more poles than any other driver on the grid and would take take 4 wins to Vette’s 0 if the team hadn’t helped him in Singapore. So again.. nothing for Vettel to complain about here.

        Overall, since 2015 Ferrari has been the 2nd best team on the grid, which is far better than how they were performing pre 2015. He’s had a couple of chances to fight for the championship in 2018 and 2018, which is better than any other team on the grid except for Mercedes.

        He doesn’t have much to complain about.. but Ferrari has more than enough reasons to sack him.

  5. Vettel tried to do a Schumacher at Ferrari. And he succeeded in many ways. First 5 years were competitive, fun, Mercedes beat them.

    He tried to do his thing in team management, strategy, influencing people around the team, all that jazz.

    But then the titles did not come after a few years. There was no Ross Brawn at Ferrari this time, there was no savant designer. And Vettel is many things, but certainly not a competent politician. He was in Italian Ferrari not English Ferrari. When you get in to backstabbing fights around the company, there is only one thing certain. The company looses. and so they did. They were second through a cheating engine and now not even that. Then backstabbing becomes brutal, emperor gets 40 knives in the gut, and so he left Ferrari.

    Schumacher ended his Ferrari career in strange taste aswell. 2 years without a title, team slowly falling apart, kicked out for greener pastures of young Massa and Kimi.

    I think something is just not right in that organisation. Certainly Vettel could not help it. Before him another force of racing Alonso failed just aswell, probably for the same reasons.

    Then there were all the mistakes. When you spin the car around in Ferrari and maybe start to blame the car in that kind of environment, your credibility declines, and people start talking behind your back, how you lost that car control and don’t deserve 30 million per year. Especially when young buck does more for a lot less.

    This is all why Vettel will be a lot happier at Aston Martin. There being third is a success, spinning the car is part of the process and car needs to be looked at. And 30 milion paycheck is not a problem, because you don’t have it.

    1. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
      7th October 2020, 15:00

      @jureo Vettel’s and Alonso’s stints at Ferrari are near identical. They both scored a lot of wins, tons of podiums, came close to winning a WDC or two but just couldn’t seal the deal against better teams. The only difference is that Alonso didn’t get a young driver and a car that didn’t suit him and he was clever to see the writing on the wall.

      1. @freelittlebirds No, they are totally different. Alonso pretty much maximized what could be achieved with the car he was given. Vettel messed up almost two dozen races from 2017. Its absolutely staggering how many points he threw away. And in doing so also 2 or 3 WDC’s.

        Plus, as Ricciardo and now Leclerc have show, Vettel does not get the maximum from the car. So even when he didn’t blunder the race away, it’s likely that an actual top driver would have done better still.

        1. I’m not sure about Ricciardo’s racing style, but Leclerc seems to be, like Raikkonen and Schumacher, a driver who prefers oversteering cars like this year’s Ferrari, while Vettel hates it. And so would Alonso and most of the grid. It’s an acquired taste really.

        2. f1saurus, agree, alonso performed to the best of what the car allowed, vettel didn’t. For record, since some don’t seem to understand it, vettel’s 2017 and 2018 ferraris were MILES better than alonso’s.

        3. @f1osaurus

          Agree with you there. Alonso may have had preferential treatment at Ferrari (well according Massa, he created the atmosphere where he was number 1), but he delivered on track. I’d even argue that given the circumstances, Alonso’s time at Ferrari was a success, because I’d seriously doubt they’d have been second to Red Bull in all those years if it wasn’t for him. In Alonso’s time at Ferrari, their average position in the constructors was 3rd, with his average position being 3rd as well, while his teammates were 6th. I remember reading an article from Andrew Benson who reported that various people in Maranello were of the impression that Alonso would have won in the 18 car.

          Alonso also saw the demise in the team structure after Domeniciali quit and LdM was forced out. When questioned if he regretted leaving Ferrari, all he used to say was, they still havent won the championship.

          Vettel should have done better with the tools he had.

          1. @jaymenon10

            Alonso may have had preferential treatment at Ferrari

            Indeed. I would say even that was far less than what Vettel got. It was at least every other race that Raikkonen got sacrificed on strategy in an effort to help Vettel.

            Vettel should have done better with the tools he had.

            Exactly. Even German press agrees on this. It was auto motor und sport that calculated that Vettel could/should have won the 2018 WDC with 54 points ahead. If he hadn’t blundered so often.

            He can’t be perfect so some mistakes are expected, but such a margin should have been enough to take the title. Even considering that another driver would probably have been faster in that same car.

        4. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
          8th October 2020, 1:39

          @f1osaurus not sure I agree. While it’s romantic thinking to assume that Alonso maximized the performance there’s no way to know. Massa was all of a sudden scoring fewer points than he did under the old points system and ended up outscoring himself with a Williams. If I recall correctly, Kimi scored 55 points in the Ferrari with Alonso after 2 seasons scoring 200 points in the Renault…

          If anything, Alonso has proven he was at least as great as Vettel at Ferrari but that’s with an asterisk because any of his teammates couldn’t score a point if their lives depended on it. I’m not going to venture into Briatore territory but obviously something is massively wrong there.

          1. @freelittlebirds Vettel messed up at least two dozen races by himself. Youc an say a lot about Alonso, but not that he blunders that often.

          2. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
            8th October 2020, 13:21

            @f1osaurus Yes, but it’s also possible that Alonso played it safe making it much less likely to blunder. After all, didn’t Alonso just sit behind Petrov at Abu Dhabi with the championship hanging in the balance? Vettel would have crashed into Petrov there but at least he would have tried to overtake him. It’s just different racing styles. Alonso just wanted to tell the world he maximized the result but when the opportunity presented itself, did he reach for it? Aggressive driving is much more error prone and also yields much lower points but it gives the driver the potential for higher results.

          3. @freelittlebirds Lol, Alonso playing it safe?

            Vettel usually doesn’t overtake either. If he stays behind even and doesn’t crash or spin.

            Either way, Vettel is clearly incredibly error prone. Especially compared to drivers like Alonso and Hamilton.

      2. @freelittlebirds I’m not sure that there would be any drivers who would really suit a car like the F2012…

        1. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
          8th October 2020, 1:31

          It suited one driver and one thing to remember is that wherever Alonso goes, the car does NOT suit his teammate. They have a hard time breaking 100 points in cars capable of scoring 250-300 points… Literally Massa scored more in the Williams than he did at Ferrari and was scoring almost as many points under the old points system than with the new one. Your points are guaranteed to go down by half once Alonso joins your team… I don’t know why but it’s not because Alonso drives well.

          1. @freelittlebirds the publicly leaked data from the pre-season tests showed that the F2012 was having some pretty major front tyre heating and front wear problems.

            That would tie in with Giorgio Piola’s assessment, where he noted that the front suspension geometry was really quite compromised for a theoretical aerodynamic gain, with the result that there was excessive wear and heating of the inside shoulder of the tyres and inconsistent front mechanical grip (and it appears that aero correlation issues meant the theoretical aerodynamic benefit wasn’t achieved in practice).

            You really wouldn’t want to design a car with the characteristics that the F2012 ended up with – i.e. producing a car with rather poor tyre wear characteristics and inefficient front tyre performance – and it didn’t really suit Alonso all that much to have such a flawed design: it was more of a case of adapting to what he was being given.

          2. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
            8th October 2020, 13:13

            You don’t nearly win a championship, much less against the Red Bull V8 with Vettel driving it, with a car that’s completely unbalanced or has major issues. We can spin it any which way we want but that’s simply impossible, otherwise Russell probably would have won a few races with the Williams.

      3. @freelittlebirds

        Vettel’s and Alonso’s stints at Ferrari are near identical. They both scored a lot of wins, tons of podiums, came close to winning a WDC or two but just couldn’t seal the deal against better teams

        Man.. Completely disagree with this statement.

        Fernando was always the strongest element in the Ferrari squad and made them genuine title contenders (falling short just a point or two) even though the machinery wasn’t quite there.

        Vettel was among the weaker elements in the Ferrari squad.. he never really took the title chase down to even the last few races and didn’t maximise his opportunities even though he had every chance to do them ion 2017 and 2018.

        I feel Alonso left disappointed with the Ferrari’s ability to challenge for the title and Vettel left Ferrari because the team were disappointed in his ability to challenge for the title.

      4. @freelittlebirds That isn’t the only difference between Alonso’s and Vettel’s stints at Ferrari. Vettel made some glaring and egotistic errors (at Baku few years back, running into Hamilton and then turning in on him on purpose, rejoining the track dangerously at Montreal), and countless spins and clashes. It amazes me that despite all his errors, people still think of him as the greatest and compare him to Alonso. Were Alonso to the mistakes Vettel made, the whole world would accuse him. But despite Vettel showing immaturity and fading talent, which frankly throw him out of the league of the greatest (for me), he’s still considered among the “greatest”. For over 2 seasons in his career (including his last one at Red Bull), he’s had faster team-mates knock his bearings off.

        1. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
          8th October 2020, 13:53

          @pt There’s no doubt that Vettel is very error prone and he was beaten by Ricciardo and Leclerc – those are facts. I wouldn’t say he was trounced by Ricciardo or by Leclerc except this season where I don’t believe that Vettel is even driving a Ferrari – that thing is an Alfa Romeo at best. He could probably score 0 points this season and he’s probably done great as it’s becoming quite obvious that Ferrari want him to quit and he’s lucky the car moves forward when he presses on the gas.

          I do believe that he’s never been 100% comfortable with the hybrids to begin with and he’s trying to overcome his handicap. If we still had V8 or V12s, it’s quite possible that Ricciardo would have been looking in his mirrors with blue flags waved to let Vettel by and that would have been the end of a very short career at Red Bull.

          It’s quite interesting that a car or an engine can make or break a driver but it’s the same in any sport. If soccer was played with volleyballs, we might see Ronaldo or Messi struggling and Benzema scoring 80 goals per season thinking he’s God!!!

          1. @freelittlebirds Interesting take, but I guess the greatest drivers manage to adapt to the cars at hand.

          2. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
            8th October 2020, 15:25

            @pt in a discussion of greatest and most adaptable, I definitely agree that Vettel would be low on that list while Alonso would be at the very top. But being a one-trick pony and not versatile is not a terrible thing. John McEnroe and Messi and I’m sure many others are 1 trick ponies with little versatility and probably the most naturally talented players to ever play their sports. Vettel’s temper also reminds us of John McEnroe which is also hugely entertaining.

          3. @freelittlebirds

            I wouldn’t say he was trounced by Ricciardo

            No indeed, Vettel was utterly destroyed by Ricciardo. Vettel finished ahead of Ricciardo only twice over the 2014 whole season!

            The reality is that Vettel does “well” when he’s in the fastest car, with a team mate that doesn’t challenge him, so he can qualify on the front row, control from the lead and then does not encounter any pressure during the race.

            Vettel is one of those drivers where you can clearly say that it IS the car. A bit like Massa. That’s how Massa’s Ferrari 2008 challenge worked.

          4. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
            8th October 2020, 19:40

            @f1osaurus The points were not that far off and Ricciardo seemed to find pace at the end of races. There’s no doubt that Ricciardo was quicker when the engines changed. It’s possible that the car was distinctly different and Vettel simply couldn’t adapt to such a different car.

            But it wasn’t as bad as Alonso beat Fisichella or Massa or Kimi. The only issue with those drivers was that they somehow couldn’t score normal points while Alonso was on the team. The difference once Alonso joins for their teammates is unbelievable.

            As for Daniel he was slower than Max who was as quick as Sainz who is slower than Hulkenberg who was slower than Daniel. Oh I forgot Perez who was much slower than Hulkenberg and the next day slightly slower. So essentially all these drivers are equally quick and also slightly slower than each other. And I think this is all in the hybrid era :-) You could make the argument that none of them deserve a championship as they were all slower than another driver.

          5. @freelittlebirds The points were not that far off? Ricciardo had almost twice as many points. Ricciardo won three races! Geez man. Get you head out of wherever you stuck it.

            Ricciardo wasn’t slower than Max. He beat Max 2016 and 2017. Only when Red Bull decided to bet on the promise of Verstappen ever becoming a well rounded driver did Verstappen score more points. Or rather they stopped giving Ricciardo a car that would make it to the finish. Even then Ricciardo still took two wins (although in fairness that was before it really hit the fan at RB), showing that Verstappen can’t even win when he has the fastest car.

    2. Schumacher wasn’t kicked out, I’m tired of seeing this all over the internet when there’s no confirmation whatsoever, they wanted raikkonen at all costs, which at the time I knew would’ve been a downgrade, schumacher could stay but then massa would’ve had to leave, and schumacher didn’t want that.

      1. So what you were saying, he rather left than see Fililpe be kicked out for Kimi.

        Sounds like a dubious circumstance to me.

        If he still had ultimate power at Ferrari, he could have Vetoed that. But he did not/could not and saw the writing on the wall, and left on his own terms.

  6. It’s not fair if you compare to the past because they have way fewer races than us today,” he explained. “So it’s a bit fake in my opinion

    He was referring to his number of races (250 at the Russian gp), not the wins.

  7. They dragged Massa and Kimi along for years even though they were not delivering. They did everything they could to keep Alonso in the team even though he didn’t want to stay.

    To get fired in this fashion speaks volumes about Vettel’s abilities and behavior.

    1. To get fired in this fashion speaks volumes about Vettel’s abilities and behavior.

      Leaving aside ‘abilities,’ getting fired could well speak volumes about Vettel having higher expectations than Ferrari over a whole range of issues. In terms of abilities, everyone and their pet fish knows that Vettel needs a car with a grippy rear end to be able to drive his own style. Otherwise his inputs can be catastrophic (as the number of spins over recent years has shown: for all his clumsy one-to-one racing, I don’t remember them being a feature at Red Bull). Ferrari, you’d have thought, would have designed a car with that in mind.

      1. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
        7th October 2020, 14:42

        @david-br interesting point about the grippy rear end. It used to be that Kimi would spin and now it’s Vettel who’s spinning. It’s possible that after driving the Red Bull for so many years, Vettel got used to a grippier car which Ferrari offered for many years but have obviously stopped offering now. It’s a shame really cause Vettel has been very successful at Ferrari and it’s quite possible Vettel’s stats may have been better than Alonso’s over the same stints at Ferrari. That’s about the best compliment you can pay to either of those drivers.

        1. @freelittlebirds Maybe it coincided with Ferrari’s refocus on engine performance to catch up with Mercedes. Certainly drivers with a smoother style like Hamilton, Verstappen and Leclerc can handle a looser car better. Vettel’s style (sharp cornering and early throttle) was suited to Red Bull’s aero panache and lots of downforce options, based around the exhaust design, to play around with to get the ideal setup for himself. Ferrari stretching to catch up Mercedes probably reduced that latitude. My guess anyhow. No doubt there are lots of people here much better informed. Supposedly Ferrari were going to produce a more Vettel-ish car this season. He did seem to adapt better than Leclerc at first, but that advantage has since vanished, maybe coinciding with the decision to ditch his services.

          1. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
            7th October 2020, 16:15

            @david-br Thanks for the information and the link. I’ve noticed that Mattia Binotto always seems to make digs against Vettel. His pace is not too bad compared to Charles… he needs a car that can help him compete [against Charles]… he’s under pressure from [his faster teammate].

            My god, I wouldn’t want to race for that team if I’d read that ;-) That article is 9 months old so they definitely had decided back then.

            Have you seen the Ferrari social media posts? If they are not intentionally attempting to ridicule Vettel’s results, then they are succeeding unintentionally. I think the Scuderia is more focused on destroying Vettel than improving the car.

      2. Thumbs up for fair and balanced comment.

      3. @david-br however, there is then the question of what happens if that then potentially conflicts with the potential development route that the team might want to take with their car, as it might then push them away from a particular design avenue that might have more long term development potential.

        It would not be the first time that such an issue has cropped up for Vettel, as a similar issue happened at Red Bull during the development of the Coanda style exhaust on the RB8 in 2012. When Red Bull first started developing those exhausts, Vettel did initially struggle with the way that it impacted the handling of the car as it did introduce a greater degree of rear instability – something which Webber did initially adapt to more easily than Vettel.

        Now, although Red Bull did allow Vettel to temporarily revert back to the pre-season exhaust package for one race – the Chinese GP – the team persisted with the development of the Coanda exhausts, even though the higher initial rear stability was yielding rather negative feedback from Vettel. In the end, later developments of those exhausts – which drew rather heavily on Sauber’s design – meant that the rear stability did increase, as did the total downforce that the car produced, and Vettel’s feedback was much more positive.

        In that scenario, if the team had followed Vettel’s initial feedback, then they might well have put more resources into the pre-season exhaust package for longer than they did, even though the Sauber and McLaren style Coanda exhausts, whilst being harder to perfect initially, offered greater long term gains.

        The team ultimately overrode Vettel’s initial preferences on the development direction, with the team taking the attitude that “we’re going to produce what we think will be the fastest car, and you’ve got to adapt to it”. You could argue that, in doing so during a year with a fairly tight championship fight, it may well be that choosing to override Vettel’s initial preferences and persisting with the Coanda style exhausts ultimately helped them produce a faster car in the longer term and helped Vettel win the WDC.

        The other aspect is that, to some extent, it’s easy to say that the team should produce “a car with a grippy rear end”, but a rather harder thing to do that in the context of the current regulation package. It has been pointed out that there are parts of the current aerodynamic regulation package that means that it’s easier to increase the amount of downforce that can be produced at the front of the car than it is at the rear of the car.

        To some extent, both Ferrari and Red Bull seem to be running into a similar issue, which is that the handling balance of the car has shifted forwards as their front end aerodynamic developments are beginning to outstrip those at the rear – certainly, at the very least, in terms of usable downforce.

        Whilst the 2017 and 2018 cars do seem to have been more neutrally balanced, it seems the 2019 car did have more problems with aerodynamic imbalances – there were even a few races where Ferrari were running with the rear wing set to the maximum angle they thought they could, and yet were still struggling to balance the handling of the car because they were running into that issue.

        It is thus the case that, to some extent, the issue is a side effect of the current rules, and potentially an issue that might even get worse for Vettel next year given the targeted cuts to downforce cut are arguably reducing rear downforce more (given the reduction in floor area). It’s not necessarily something that can be easily designed out either – arguably, one of the things that has made Mercedes so strong recently is not necessarily just the total downforce, but that they have probably the most usable downforce and a much more neutral handling balance than their rivals have achieved, and that is something that likely hasn’t come easily.

        1. anon @ lots of excellent points as usual! I’m sure you’re right about the current regulations limiting rear downforce and generating problems for various teams, including Red Bull. I think I’m right in recalling that Mercedes altered their rear axle design for this season and indeed that was identified as a more important innovation than DAS. If so, that would go some way to explaining the advantage they’ve enjoyed. I’d like to see Vettel get the car he needs to really perform well, as a kind of swan song. It sounds quite a difficult prospect though from what you’re saying about next year and beyond.

    2. Thats a very strange view on history.
      Not sure where to start with this kind of Trumpish misinformation…

  8. I’m pretty sure he will win races, but a championship is really a long shot for how he performs now. Unless, he gets a car like the Mercedes, and that will never happen with Aston, at leat in his time.

  9. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
    7th October 2020, 14:25

    There’s something intrinsically wrong with Ferrari this year and last year. There’s no doubt that since the departure of Arrivabene, things have gone south.

  10. It’s cute how he keeps on trying to blame shift the fails on Ferrari, but Baku, Canada, Singapore and Mexico in 2017 were really his own doing. Going very long and still pounding in the laps at Silverstone also wasn’t very clever.
    2018 was even worse. Baku, France, Austria, Germany, Monza, Japan, USA are all easy wins which he threw away.
    In 2019 we had Bahrain, Canada, Silverstone, Monza, Russia, Japan, Mexico, Brazil.

    It’s an astonishing list of races that Vettel threw away. So yes, it’s not only Germany 2018, but it’s about two dozen races in all where he performed abysmally poor and threw away at least 2 WDC’s and a true talent could have raked in 2019 as well.

    1. The straw that broke the camel’s back (Ferrari’s patience in this case) was Interlagos 2019. Vettel DELIBERATELY caused the contact with Leclerc during the overtake. Totally unnecessary move that cost SF many championship points and it clearly showed that Vettel not only is not a team player, but cannot control his red mist emotions. That very moment sealed his fate with the team.

      1. Yet on opening lap of same race Leclerc swiped hard on Lando and only due to presence of mind shown by Lando did both cars survive compared to Vettel’s move where Leclerc had option to cede.

        1. Cede what? They were going down a STRAIGHT and VET was inching away? 120% VET’s fault. So much so that SF made the decision after that.

        2. Chaitanya Whataboutism much? Not really comparable situations either though.

        3. Chaitanya, on the other hand, you could then say Vettel also had the option to avoid a collision given that he was the one who was overtaking Leclerc and then moving his car towards the left hand side of the track, thus moving his car towards Leclerc.

          Leclerc was himself moving over towards the left hand side of the track at the time that contact was made between himself and Vettel, so the collision did require Vettel to be moving towards Leclerc.

    2. Absolutely agree vettel threw away a lot of races, and I’m a big critic of him as well, however I think saying 2019 would’ve been winnable by a real top driver is overdoing it, just look what leclerc did, he could’ve won 5 races or so, and he did very well, but that car was way too far behind mercedes on average, remember the dominant lead they had after few races.

      1. @esploratore

        remember the dominant lead they had after few races.

        Yes and a lot of that was down to Ferrari driver failures.

        Like in Bahrain where Vettel spun off while Leclerc was going for an easy win. Baku Leclerc was on for pole, but crashed and Vettel was abysmal. If they just win these then it’s 2 wins each and there is no runaway lead for Mercedes. Then Canada where Vettel messed up the fuel use in the first half of the race, then panicked and went off again throwing away the win.

        See that is the problem, people only look at the scoreboard and then call Mercedes dominant, that was not down to the car. That was all Hamilton being a much better driver (fast and consistent) than Vettel, Leclerc and Verstappen.

        The reality is that in 2019 Ferrari (with a better driver) could certainly have won Bahrain, Baku, Canada, Austria, Hungary, Russia, Japan and Mexico. Plus they did win Spa, Monza and Singapore. That’s 11 possible wins of which they picked up only 3!

        Plus they should have performed better in Australia, Spain, USA and of course Brazil.

        Also I can’t believe that a top tier driver would not at least have split the Mercedes in some of the races like Australia, China, France, Silverstone. Like Verstappen in the third fastest car was doing to the Ferrari drivers. You don’t need the fastest car to get ahead of someone. The guy starting from P2 is always vulnerable to whoever starts from P3. Instead Vettel starting from P3 was more likely to lose to Verstappen in P4.

        And then the fact that a better driver would have been faster than Vettel and Leclerc (then still getting to grips with the new team). So Ferrari would definitely have been faster overall and could have been able to challenge for the win even in the races where they could now only go for splitting the mercs.

        So I think it’s quite clear that a top tier driver could have been WDC at Ferrari in 2019.

  11. I hope Seb gets back on track (no pun intended). I want to see him racing like he used to even if it’s only for the pure pleasure of it.

  12. SV nice chap for sure.
    However.
    One day his WDC’s will be put in their correct perspective.
    RBR were truly dominant back then.
    SV’s ego & temperament have regularly been found to be wanting.
    Particularly under any sort of pressure. On & Off track.

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