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[texasmr2]

Sorry. I just really feel like being a troll right now.

[Fred_C_Dobbs]

Vettel still can't overtake. Then again neither can Matt Neal but he still won 2 BTCC titles.

That point doesn't get much press but it is true.

Before you go there, I am a Vettel fan but I don't wear blinders when it comes to his shortcomings.

Vettel's greatest gift is blinding speed and mistake-proof driving when the track ahead is clear. There were multiple races when Alonso, Webber and Hambone just couldn't wring enough speed out of their cars. Vettel, OTOH, took ten poles, started on the front row in all but five races, and behind the first two rows only once (Monza). He only ever finished out of the points once, when he punted Button at Spa (which I still believe was the fault of Newey's flexy front wing and not Vettel himself).

Don't forget he had two DNFs while he was in the lead owing to mechanical failures that were no fault of his own.

Three of his five wins were at Tilke tracks, none of which reward overtaking skill. And two of his DNFs occurred at TilkeDromes while he was either leading or contesting the lead.

I can't recall a single brilliant overtaking manoeuver. Disastrous, yes. Brilliant, no.

But if Vettel can buy a little spare overtaking talent from Hambone of Kobayashi, there will be hell to pay.

EDIT:
IIRC, Vettel is the seventh driver in F1 history to take 10 poles in a single season. All seven also won the WDC.

[What's Burning?]

Vettel still can't overtake. Then again neither can Matt Neal but he still won 2 BTCC titles.

That point doesn't get much press but it is true.

Before you go there, I am a Vettel fan but I don't wear blinders when it comes to his shortcomings.

Vettel's greatest gift is blinding speed and mistake-proof driving when the track ahead is clear. There were multiple races when Alonso, Webber and Hambone just couldn't wring enough speed out of their cars. Vettel, OTOH, took ten poles, started on the front row in all but five races, and behind the first two rows only once (Monza). He only ever finished out of the points once, when he punted Button at Spa (which I still believe was the fault of Newey's flexy front wing and not Vettel himself).

Don't forget he had two DNFs while he was in the lead owing to mechanical failures that were no fault of his own.

Three of his five wins were at Tilke tracks, none of which reward overtaking skill. And two of his DNFs occurred at TilkeDromes while he was either leading or contesting the lead.

I can't recall a single brilliant overtaking manoeuver. Disastrous, yes. Brilliant, no.

But if Vettel can buy a little spare overtaking talent from Hambone of Kobayashi, there will be hell to pay.

EDIT:
IIRC, Vettel is the seventh driver in F1 history to take 10 poles in a single season. All seven also won the WDC.

I agree. I don't believe that he would be WDC had he been in a less capable car. That being said, so much of racing is being in the right place at the right time and he beat a very experienced team mate with the same car. He's without a doubt one of the best qualifiers in the business and that fact helped him earn his title no discrediting that. He's young and will have the opportunity to grow and continue to improve his racing skills. He's already achieved what most F1 drivers can only dream about.

[irChris]

For a season that started off pretty badly I can't remember one race that didnt have any excitement, incident or controversy.

For starters I think the Vettel fully deserves his crown for this year. More worryingly for the rest of the field I think there's definitely room for improvement, more so with his ability to overtake. Even with his mistakes, take away his bad luck in places like Bahrain, Korea and Australia and he'd have taken the title before Abu Dhabi. Mark Webber I just don't think has what it takes to beat Vettel. Towards the end of the year the pressure probably got to him. Albeit only by a couple of tenths, all races where Vettel was leading an RBR 1-2 he was always falling back. Hopefully he sticks around for another season but he'll have to have a faultless season if he wants to beat Vettel to the title. A large chunk of credit has to go to the designers of the car, it was an absolute beast.

McLaren will be disappointed that apart from perhaps Canada, they never had the fastest car for a GP Weekend. Hamilton's retirements in Italy and Singapore was always going to put him on the backfoot and straight away I had the feeling that it would take a miracle for him to win the world title. Apart from that I think he's had another great year, pulled off some more great overtaking moves and at times made Button look like a rookie. Apart from wins in Australia and China, Jenson had a large number of disappointing races. Not helped his qualifying and being stuck behind reasonably fast cars on tracks that are difficult to overtake on, it was promising to see him on the podium in Abu Dhabi and hopefully that will carry some momentum into next season. I'd really like to see more drives from him that compare to his race in Brazil '09. As for the team they really need to sort out their pace on Saturdays. The speed is there on race day it's difficult to fulfil the cars potential when you're starting from the 3rd row of the grid with cars infront that are no pushovers. Much improved from 2009 rather obviously and was good to see the drivers maintain a good relationship.

Ferrari can definitely take momentum into next season. Despite a slow start the car has been a threat everywhere in the second half of the season.. in the hands of one driver anyway. As a driver Alonso is clearly one of, if not the best out there. As a person he remains a knob.. I assume he'll look back and mistakes at Monaco, Turkey and China will be what cost him. However at the risk of sounding bitter he did pick up 14 points from cars falling sick infront of him, and a further 7 when his teammate let him through in Germany. There's more than that, but being fair you could argue that its down to him to be there to pick up the pieces when the cars ahead are breaking down. Massa it's hard to say. Is that his genuine pace or did Alonso really have an effect on him? Either way next season he will have to improve given Ferrari's policy of always wanting F1's two best drivers in their team.

Mercedes have been disappointing and hopefully they won't replicate BMW's 09 season having given up this season for the next one. Schumacher clearly got better as the season went on and it would be great to see him challening at the front of the grid next season. Rosberg has been consistently good but that's about it. A few special drives at the start of the season and the odd performance towards the end of the season is where he's picked up the most of his points, however as the car became less competitive so did he. An easy 4th place.

A bit like Ferrari but not particularly being able to match them on pace, Renault were strong wherever they went for the majority of the season. With a driver like Kubica who will always get the best out of the car, it wasn't too surprising to see Renault high up the timing sheets. For F1 it'd be great to see Renault being able to mount a title challenge next season, however I think this season they've reached their peak and Kubica will have to move elsewhere if he wants to win WDC's in years to come. I think i'm in the minority in wanting Petrov to keep his seat next season. Yes he's made too many mistakes this season but the potential is there to see in his drives at Hungary and Abu Dhabi. I personally don't think knowing that he had to drive his backside off for the 2nd half of the season to keep his seat helped him.

Williams rather evidently were the most improved this season. I was a fan of the driver line-up and eventually they were rewarded with a competitive car. Come the final 3rd of the season they regularly had both cars in the final part of qualifying and had both cars in points paying positions. I really hope Williams can push on over the next year or two and start pushing for regular podiums. Both drivers had solid seasons, not many highlights though. Of course the one stand out moment is Hulkenburg's pole in Brazil and I find it disappointing he wasn't able to agree to a seat with Williams next season. He's done a good enough job this season to avoid having to join one of the new teams.

Force India for me were very big disappointments. After a decent start to the season where there car would be able to challenge for Q3, upgrades to the car seemed to halt and they were only marginally better than Toro Rosso. Sutil followed the teams decline, he was much improved in the first half of the season but was very poor as the season drew to a close. With Liuzzi its difficult to understand. There were a few sparkling performances in places like Canada and Korea but his qualifying performances held him back. Really think its 50/50 whether he'll be there next season but i'm sure he'll find a drive elsewhere if it comes to it.

Sauber's pace was a surprise for me. Once they got into Europe and their engines stopped failing, they started to pick up small points quite regularly and even managed to scrape through to Q3 a handful of times. Kobayashi is a great talent and great to watch whilst de la Rosa was average if not worse. Heidfeld came in late and didn't have much of a chance to impress. That remainded the case. Given their target was probably to beat Toro Rosso, they comfortably did that and the season can probably be seen as a success.

Not a fat lot to say about Toro Rosso. They were average everywhere they went this season and only a couple of eye-catching performances from Alguersuari in Malaysia and Abu Dhabi were anything to shout about. Just realised that Buemi squeezed some points out this season too, but for me was quite disappointing. I can't see it getting much better for the team in 2011.

It's hard to comment on the trio of new teams because of the lack of coverage they received throughout the season. Lotus probably edged out Virgin in being the best car but I think HRT could boast that their cars could reach the chequered flag more times than both Lotus and Virgin. From what I remember, Kovalainen out performed Trulli over the season although I lost count of how many times Trulli had abandoned his car on the side of the track. Glock obviously out performed di Grassi but I think he has a solid debut season. Senna/Chandhok/Yamamoto/Klien.. I just don't know. The car was a total dog to drive so it's hard to comment on any of them. Im not sure if any of the new teams are really going to be able to challenge Toro Rosso next season.

[texasmr2]

Nice 'book' irChris do you jave a publisher yet?

I'm kidding fyi .

[FRAFPDD]

Yes but in reposnse to a comment resembling this: " worse news for the others is that vettel will probably improve" vettel also wont have a car anywhere near as well balanced and fast and this one, so the question is, will vettels improvments overcome a 0.5-1.0 second gap? i dont think so, and ive never said a bad word about vettel bar his finger twirling in turkey, but i dont see him winning another championship when hes got to fight other cars ever lap of every race for it. Worthy of this years and still of course to be proven in the future, but my opinion is that of a one time driver champion. I dont think from what we saw of his overtaking this year in his third year of full f1 will improve that dramatically now hes won a title. Just my parade p*ssing two cents

[irChris]

Nice 'book' irChris do you jave a publisher yet?

I'm kidding fyi .

Haha, I wrote it on another forum but got little attention.. showed it to a mate and told me I should put it on some other forums.

I signed up to this forum last year but couldn't remember my username.