his engine had been turned down and Vettel's hadn't been
Please, please inform yourself.
Of the other retro-actively history rewriting people here, I expect zero educated response, but please do yourself a favor and drop this myth that Vettel had not turned down his engine. It was busted long long ago.
Christian Horner @ BBC F1 said: ”they were both on the same engine mode”, and a Red Bull spokesperson @ The Daily Mail said: “Seb’s engine was turned down”.
In other words - nothing is black or white when it comes to these team order / disobeying issues. You cannot compare the incomparable - and that is exactly the case here.
In all fairness, it was a bit of baiting. But it was interesting to see how simplistic and hypocritical people are here. Malaysia: just black-and-white. If you ignore team orders, you are arrogant and consider yourself bigger than the team. Now, wow, all of a sudden there is a thing such as context
. Just sadly funny to see how people care only about their agenda and are willing to change the standards to fit it.
Regardless of the engine mode (I don't know if I believe that or not, but again it's not the main issue so doesn't really matter), it was a 'surprise' attack if you like. That much cannot be disputed, again, the main issue that I highlighted was an awareness of what was coming - Massa had it, Webber didn't. Given that the team orders themselves are on record, that much cannot be disputed. There is nothing hypocritical or simplistic about it - I have ALWAYS maintained that context is important, whether in this issue or any other dispute / disagreement between ANY team members or regarding ANY team orders. I certainly have no agenda whatsoever except to give a completely unbiased opinion of how I see things taking into account all relevant factors. Again, these incidents are not comparable.
One thing I will say, is that the ruthlessness Vettel has certainly isn't isolated to him. Schumacher had similar traits, as did both Senna and Prost, Piquet Snr too. There may have been similar calls / incidents in the past similar to this that we aren't aware of as team radio broadcast and the vast insider media coverage, social media etc. hasn't been around that long, even though the chances are that such orders, disagreements etc. were.
Again, I like Vettel, he has a champions attitude, a winners attitude. At the same time though, there is often an aspect to that type of personality that in the heat of battle goes over the line of fairness / natural justice. It happened with ALL of the other names I mentioned, and it DID happen to Vettel, in the episode in question.
What you need to understand is that just because Vettel was in the wrong (which he was) in an incident or two, and others recognise it, does NOT mean that we all hate him. I like him, I just recognise that people are not as one dimensional or easy to pigeon hole as that.
Favourite racing series: F1, Indycar, NASCAR, GP2, F3, Formula E, Trophee Andros, DTM, WTCC, BTCC, World Endurance... etc. etc.