Brawn's thoughts on Vettel talent

He pretty much says what the majority of F-Chat pundits believe. There are a couple who think Seb is the best driver in F1 history (not just the grid), but most of us tend to say that he's an excellent driver in the best car. Because of that, it's hard to say he's better than the likes of Fernando Alonso, Button, or Hamilton (although in the same conversation).

I'll say it again, but for my money I think Alonso does the most with the least so I think he's "the guy" out of that group (and I'm not even a fan of his). He has the consistency of Button to take what the car will give him, but he's also a fast driver and great defensively.

I don't think Brawn understood the questions about Seb under "pressure"...it's not the pressure of winning a championship that unwravels him, it's the pressure applied by an equal or faster car. He has shown chinks in the armor each time he found himself behind the McLarens this season as well as Fernando in Japan.

 

Spot on, my sentiments exactly..

Vettel is a awesome driver make no mistake, I have seen his real side, a ruthless one at that, it reared it's head in his last race for example.

I don't think you can make a full judgement on him as yet as his car is so damn good.

 

To my mind, Vettel answered the question of how he performs in an inferior car when he came up through Sauber/BMW and Toro Rosso. It is not like he came up in the likes of Ferrari or McLaren, who even in their "bad" years commonly have podium potential.

However, I don't question that another test will be when he is a past champion campaigning inferior hardware.

But with his current resume, I can't imagine him in any car that isn't one of the top teams. It would be fun to see his race results in the current Force India or Sauber, though!

 

I agree that Vettel is not likely to see truly inferior machinery the rest of his career. But, on the other hand the test is going to be when his car is the car is definately the third or fourth best of the top ones. A portion of Schumacher's greaness was the ability to race a lesser Ferrari and make wins happen. He also was so dedicated that he played an integral part in helping making sure that the team developed a winning car; not just drove whatever was handed to him. Unfortunately the ability to perform continuous testing like he did has been taken away.

Jeff

 

A strange thing to say from Brawn. We've seen nearly all of the top drivers in inferior cars during their career - where they showed a glimpse of their future performance (Alsono, Vettel), hid their real talent (Button) or delivered the same solid, but not overwhelming drives like they do now in the top teams (Webber, Massa).
The only one who has always driven a really fast car is Hamilton. I'd love to see his raw speed (minus the crashes ) in a Sauber or Toro Rosso, but that won't happen until he's old and grey, I suppose...

 

This is the heart of Brawn's point...NO DRIVER was/is as single-mindedly dedicated to creating a championship as Schumacher. While we can lament that we are not seeing him at his best due to his car, I think anyone on the other side of 35 realizes there is something else at play also.

 

i've never been much of a seb fan but if you had any question of his speed being driver or equipment then watch his qualifying lap at suzuka last weekend. that lap was 100% commitment at every corner and confirmed to me why he's WC this year. it was clear going into Q3 that the mclaren had the edge on him due to higher straight-line speed, so seb did all he could to make it up with higher corner speed. listen to the engine note in T1, the esses and the degner curves he's at least 1000rpm higher than everyone else. in degner and spoon he carries the car beautifully in a drift out over the curbs. it was a spectacular lap on par with some of senna's best at suzuka and a display of how a racecar should be driven.

whether seb will be successful without newey only time will tell. he's taking the most dialed in car on the grid and getting 100% out of it (can't say that for weber). he tuned the toro rosso into a front running car and carried the red bull in 2009 pretty well against the brawn. perhaps he should start talking about his setup work more in the press and then everyone will buy into him being the complete package.

 

Have a look at Weber's lap times during the race. Aside from the time you know Vettel is pushing to build a gap in front of the pack at the beginning, they are dead-on in terms of lap times during the race.

Vettel and Nando would be an interesting combo. Until Vettel has the real deal next to him as a teammate, I will hold off in stating he is one of the all-time greats. He has undoubtedly proven thus far he is a very talented driver, but I believe he would have his rear end handed to him by other more cut-throat drivers on the grid.

 

So you're saying it's a bad thing that Vettel knows when to hold off and when to push....? He's the real deal. Anybody who says differently is kidding themselves.

 

You could be dead right. Still far too early in his career to make any judgment other than that he is indeed a great driver, just how great is the question. Get him with a real teammate in a car that is not alpha. We won't see the teammate thing for a long time though. However the car could be crap as early as next year, but I doubt it.

 

Well given that less than 10 drivers have ever won back to back WDC and he is the youngest of them all must at least put him in the top 10 already and he's not even half way through his potential F1 career... By my book that makes him pretty special (note - I'm not saying he's the best ever... Yet)

 

+1 As usual with your posts, perfectly stated. I still think that if Hamilton got his head together he would be untouchable.

 

I'm not certain I've heard anyone hint Vettel's not the real deal. He's the youngest back-to-back WDC ever, and his win last year was far from a sure thing (though he did have the best car on the grid...the team just brain-farted their way through most of the season).

I think everybody agrees that Seb is in that upper-echelon of drivers on the grid (you know, the one with Fernando, Jensen and Lewis). At the end of the day, he still out-qualified his teammate in almost every race and put himself in the position to drive off into the sunset on most race days. That takes a lot of talent unto itself.

 

Yep; that jerk is the complete package but even he gets tired of pushing a slow car up the grid knowing that victory is not going to happen.

Lewis still is the raw speed demon when he has his act togeather.

Jenson in the Tortoise that beats the hare.

Even MS's treachery..., er wisdom, has its place.

All in all a good group of drivers to witness.

 

Lewis will get his head together. The thing about adversity is that it's fantastic for gaining perspective, wisdom and maturity. While I hope he doesn't change his aggressive driving style, I think better discretion on when to make a move will benefit him greatly.

I would feel comfortable in expecting him to come back stronger overall next season. I don't know what he will do about his battles with MS and Massa...then again, Michael had to deal with the same situation with Montoya, Coulthard and Sato so he can still be successful with enemies on the grid.

 

+ 1,000. I keep expecting Alonso's head to explode one of these days. I give him a lot of credit for distancing himself from his prima donna past and not bombing the team (though they deserve it). You can see it wearing on him though...he's not a happy camper with his car.

 

For the most part I definitely agree with this. Ham is sort of the modern day Senna. The guy is a virtuoso. Very *banzai*

 

Brawn hints that Michael only truly became great when, after two world championship titles, he left to lift a team without recent championship titles into winning ways. Mercedes is a distinctly German team and like German drivers... Vettel is German.

I think Mercedes would most certainly like to retain Vettel's services and that interview was really more of an invitation.

All the best,
Andrew.

 

We will see Vettel in silver. Bet on it

 

Can't afford to.

And we need to think of Andreas' liver... there's only so much beer he'll be able drink!

All the best,
Andrew.

 

Gahhhhhhh so cliche...

 

If Alonso and Vettel had the same dialed in Red Bull chassis, what would be the outcome?

 

There's the (unanswerable) multi-$MM question!

FWIW, my 02c; As of today; Fred.

I can feel a poll coming on though

Cheers,
Ian

 

I think Alonso is a cooler head and much better at driving in close quarters. SV is just a master technician around the track, but you throw in someone to alter his plans and he definitely comes unglued.