Vettel must NOT start 2020 in Ferrari

I haven't visited or posted in a long, long, looonnng time. I think it might've started with a suspension of sorts when the arguments raged over how Lewis rated as a driver compared to Vettel or Fernando Alonso....the list goes on. The name calling, the inability to refer to Lewis with any respect whatsoever....and now, here we are. I feel very satisfied in how this has all played out.

 

Time to take a deep breath...... okay you good now?


Overreaction Sunday

 

Binotto let this go too far: you can´t let them fight because they don´t know how to do it without creating trouble. Leclerc because he´s too young and Vettel because he´s too idiot. From now on I hope he´s learnt the lesson and the order of the cars will be decided from the pits. And if a driver does not agree, he can be convinced later at the pits with a baseball bat applied to his knee.

And about Vettel, well, he´s like a child, it´s impossible not to love him. But he has to go. He´s not doing anything than the new dude can do at a fraction of the cost. But we´ll have to wait till 2021, when his and other´s contracts run out.

 

Why waste another year and expect another shower of misery ?
The Scuderia didn't have problem breaking contracts in the past.
An organisation like Ferrari has no reluctance to take harsh decisions when necessary and settle later for compensation.

 

But apart from paying Vettel, they´d need to buy someone else´s contract, unless they settle for Hulkenberg or convince Alonso to stop playing in the sand and get back to "real" racing. All that for a transitional year, when nobody is going to sell the farm knowing what´s coming in 2021. I don´t think it´s worth it.

With a bit of luck, next year Leclerc will be ahead after a few races and Vettel will admit his place in the food chain without creating any hassle.

 

Ferrari isn't a team that is short of money. they shouldn't hesitate to sack Vettel, and worry about the financial consequences later.
A bit like a divorce; you go through it, and bite the bullet when they calculate the alimonies !
The important is to get rid of a dead weight, in both cases ... Hahaha ... and to move on.
Instead of molycoding Vettel, 2020 at the Scuderia should be spent consolidating Leclerc's position, designing a car for the new 2021 rules, and scouting for talents for the second seat.
Just look how Red Bull does it: they are very ruthless when it comes to managing drivers !


BTW, I say scouting for new talents, and not thinking about losers like Alonso or Hulkenberg who are well beyond their shelf life and bring plenty of baggage with them!
For Christ's sake, if the Scuderia want to be a top team, it can't consider picking up left-overs !!
Ferrari needs a second Leclerc, young, marketable, skilled, and with a future in front of him.

 

Even Alonso couldn’t **** up at this magnitude, however unpopular he is on these boards.

Seb’s shelf life has grossly expired. And I for one am sick of his public whining; look at Leclerc’s race and post-race commentary, just pure class, that’s what I want representing team red.

#teamLeclerc

 

His time as a credible Number One driver at Ferrari is over, but it seems that nobody dares to tell him.

 

Binotto has pretty adequately demonstrated that he doesn’t command enough respect to control his drivers.

VET will not be replaced until the end of his contract. I just don’t see it happening.

 

People who follow Ferrari with a passion can brace themselves for another year of frustration then !

 

I don’t see anything changing.

 

Look at the in car camera of Leclerc..he turned to the right...as Vettel passed to the right. Autosport just published ...

 

Agreed. Maybe Binotto himself will be canned after the end of ANOTHER year of disaster like this one. If he is truly calling the shots, it's time to Man up and boot Vettel.

 

Superb comment. I refuse to comment further here or in the race thread. Vettel is one who does not exist for me at all now. I fully wish for him a miserable year next year if we suffer more with him. He cannot leave soon enough. FERRARI - be rid of this mess and driver NOW!

 

Vettel moved left.

Via Autosport - Two laps later, Leclerc mugged team-mate Vettel on the inside into the first corner, but when Vettel fought back on the run down to the Descida do Lago he moved left and the two Ferraris hit each other.

 

Ever since Multi 21, Kid Index has shown his ego is more important than anything else in his world.

Kick him to the curb.

 

Why wait until 2021?

The solution is simple. Tell Vettel to stay home during the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
weekend and put Fucco, Hartley, Rigon or Wehrlein (I'd go with Wehrlein) in the car
for the finale event.

No one is indispensable and the incident today was inexcusable. Vettel's days with
the Scuderia must certainly be numbered.

BHW

 

Wow, what a breakthrough .... I don't think so .

Giovinazzi couldn't pull the skin of a rice pudding, and you want to promote him at Ferrari ?

 

Money talks... vettel not going anywhere; Germany too big of a mRket and 4x world champ


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Ferrari has a history of retaining drivers past their expiry date, ie. Massa, Kimi and now Vettel. Trouble is all the other top drivers are locked into contracts till 2020 or beyond. They'd do well to replace Vettel with Ricciardo or Sainz whenever it happens.

 

https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/50455068

It took 20 races, but finally the inevitable happened at Ferrari at the Brazilian Grand Prix. Their drivers Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel collided, taking both out of the race and leaving the team with a rather large problem on their hands.

"Silly" was the word team boss Mattia Binotto used to describe the incident. In his cool, detached way, he deflected a series of opportunities to lay the blame, and said he would reconvene with Vettel and Leclerc at the factory in Maranello this week to analyse what happened, come to some form of judgement and decide on next steps.

The question now for Binotto is what he does next and how he manages what has become the most combustible driver pairing in F1, not so much for the one remaining race this year, but to prevent the internal competition from derailing their 2020 campaign.

What happened?
The collision occurred on lap 66 of a frenetic race, with five to go, as the two Ferrari drivers found themselves at the back of a queue of cars being held up by Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes, running second to Red Bull's Max Verstappen on much older tyres than those behind.

Ahead of them, and behind Hamilton, was Red Bull's Alexander Albon, who was trying to pass the Mercedes while also holding back Vettel, who in turn had Leclerc behind him.

Leclerc saw an opportunity and dived for the inside of Vettel into Turn One. It was a daring move, aggressive certainly, but absolutely clean. But not one that Vettel was likely to take lying down.

The German had use of the DRS overtaking aid on the run towards Turn Four, and Leclerc moved to the inside to defend his position, leaving just enough room for Vettel - but not an inch more - on the outside.

What happened?

"There is not so much to say, I think it's pretty clear. But obviously it's bitter and a shame for the team to lose both cars. I didn't have much space on the right. I had a better run out of the chicane and tried to pass and then we touched."

Approaching the corner, Vettel then moved across on his team-mate, his left rear tyre touching Leclerc's front right. Although light, the contact broke Leclerc's suspension and ripped the tyre off the rim, and also gave Vettel a right-rear puncture.

Both cars retired from the race, prompting the final safety car that triggered a bonkers last two laps, in which Mercedes did what technical director James Allison described as "plain dumb" in pitting Hamilton for fresh tyres, the world champion collided with Albon, costing the Anglo-Thai a first podium, and Toro Rosso's Pierre Gasly finished a wholly unexpected second.

What did the Ferrari drivers say?
Vettel did what he always does in controversial situations and kept his public pronouncements to a limit, repeating the same few sentences in every interview.

Whose fault was it?

"It doesn't matter now," Vettel said. "We both didn't finish the race, which is bad for us as a team."

Leclerc was a little more forthcoming.

All year, Binotto has been doing his best to manage the inevitably tense situation.

Ferrari started the season with Binotto saying Vettel, as the senior driver, would have priority in any "50-50 decisions", and the first few races passed with a series of team-order calls, the majority in Vettel's favour.

"We will have to analyse better the crash," he said. "I overtook in Turn One, then on the run to Turn Four I closed the door.

"I was aware he was on the outside. I left little space but enough for him and then I think he tried to squeeze me a little bit towards the inside and we were very close so we touched straight away. Very disappointing to end a race like this."

The stewards - to the surprise of some, given that Vettel had clearly changed his line and instigated a collision - ruled it a racing incident and took no further action.

How did it happen?
How the two Ferrari drivers came to this juncture is a rather longer story than the events of this weekend.

To those on the outside, it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. The pressure inside Ferrari has been building all year as Leclerc has established himself as a star and threatened - and perhaps usurped already - Vettel's seniority in the team. Vettel, meanwhile, is a proud man who, in the car, is as stubborn as they come when it comes to protecting his competitive position.

Leclerc said he accepted the situation but also that he would do his best to change it. And as soon as the second race in Bahrain, he dominated Vettel and everyone else and was on the way to a superb victory when his engine developed a problem in the closing stages.

Tensions cooled after the first few races, as it became apparent that Ferrari did not have the pace to mount a title challenge, and Vettel established the upper hand as Leclerc's chances were comprised by a few too many mistakes in qualifying, usually by him, but sometimes also by the team.

But at the French Grand Prix in June, Leclerc turned a corner and went on a run of nine races in which he out-qualified Vettel, while the German continued to make the sort of pressure errors that have blighted his last three years at Ferrari.

Leclerc won twice in Belgium and Italy as Ferrari made a flying start to the second part of the season. In Monza, there was a controversy when Leclerc failed to do his part of a prearranged team strategy for the drivers to give each other tows in qualifying, which angered Vettel.

Vettel then won in Singapore, but only after the team inadvertently got him ahead of Leclerc, who has been leading from pole position, by pitting Vettel first to try to pass Hamilton for second place.

Then in Russia Vettel directly refused team orders to let Leclerc by - which had been agreed pre-race following a decision to get Leclerc, again on pole, to let Vettel past with a slipstream into the first corner, so both Ferraris could be running one-two in front of Hamilton.

Since then, Vettel has been on a bit of a run, and has out-qualified Leclerc in the last two races, and the battle for primacy at Ferrari has taken another twist. And now this.

What next?
It's not hard to work out what has happened here. Vettel will not have taken kindly to being passed by his team-mate. He has then made what many will see as a misjudgement in trying to reclaim the position and been too aggressive in moving over on Leclerc.

As Leclerc put it: "The result was a huge disaster but the incident itself was a very small touch. It's unfortunate."

Vettel has form at this sort of thing. Those with long-ish memories will recall the Turkish Grand Prix in 2010, when in trying to pass Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber, he moved over and the two touched, handing a one-two to McLaren drivers Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button.

And in the past two years, Vettel has become infamous for making a series of errors in racing situations. Many will see this as the latest example.

After Russia, the two Ferrari drivers were sat down by Binotto to discuss the situation. But the issue for Ferrari is that in the past Vettel has proven time and again that he is reluctant to be managed - unless the situation is in his favour.

What will Binotto do about this aspect of his former number one driver, he was asked?

"It is not a matter of managing," Binotto said. "It is matter of recognising what has been the actions and mistakes. Whether you are a driver or engineer or whatever, recognising mistakes is important because it can only make you better.

"It is not for me to blame them, it is for them to recognise it."

On the other hand, while Vettel undoubtedly triggered the incident, Leclerc - who was making his own point in the psychological and on-track battle between the two - may come to conclude that in pinching his team-mate so close to the grass, he was making himself vulnerable to exactly the kind of move Vettel made.

"We need to clarify within the team what is silly and what is not," Binotto said, "where is the limit of the actions. But when you have a crash, something was wrong, no doubt. When you are free to fight, it is a driving matter how much you can take the risk but today the risk was not necessary."

The potential consequences
In Brazil, the two Ferrari drivers were free to race because the team had secured second place in the constructors' championship and all that was left was to decide which finished ahead in the drivers'.

Heading into Brazil, Leclerc was third in the championship, ahead of Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Vettel. Verstappen's superb win at Interlagos, coupled with the retirement of the Ferrari drivers, has promoted the Dutchman to third and given him an 11-point cushion on Leclerc, a margin that the Monegasque will not find it easy to overhaul at the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi on 1 December.

More important for Binotto, though, is how he handles the Vettel-Leclerc situation going into 2020.

Leclerc is likely to finish this year ahead of Vettel on points, on race wins, on pole positions, and on their qualifying head-to-head, despite the advantages Vettel had at the beginning of the year, and despite the fact that he is in his first year with the team and only in his second in F1, against a four-time champion with 53 wins.

To all intents and purposes, Leclerc is now Ferrari's lead driver, and Binotto cannot go into next year giving Vettel priority. But nor will Vettel accept it being given to Leclerc. He just doesn't work that way. He believes his status in the sport demands more.