Excellent drive from Grosjean, driver of the day by a margin. I'm really happy that he's finally beginning to show the consistency that he had lacked through his whole career to date. Always been fast, consistency was his achilles heel - looks like he is beginning to show potential to become a WDC contender for the future given the right machinery!
Vettel didn't put a foot wrong, was careful when he needed to be, and turned it on when the chips were down. All season he's made the very most of the car given to him, and he shouldn't be faulted for grasping his opportunity whilst in the fastest car - no different to Mansell in 1992, Prost in 1993, Villeneuve in 1997 or Schumacher in the 2000s.
That said, one thing I do have to pick up on is that everyone is heaping praise on Newey. This SHOULD be qualified though. YES Newey is the best aerodynamicist in F1, YES he has a simply amazing track record, but NO he didn't design the perfect car this year.
You can only design a car that is an optimum balance with the other factors including height / width / ride height / bodywork restrictions AND most importantly - the tyres that you have to race with. The tyres that the teams had to work with at the start of this season showed that the Red Bull was NOT the optimum designed car. I STILL think that Force India and Lotus should be compensated by the FIA for the mid-season farce which indisputedly has cost both teams a large haul of points that they would have earned over the second half of the season. THEY had designed their car appropriately, under the regulations for 2013 that all teams had to work under, and had no major issues with the tyres. To me, it is unacceptable that 'safety issues' are an excuse for changing this, simply due to the fact that other teams have designed their cars in a way that air flow degrades the tyres faster than other teams etc. THEY should have been forced to alter their cars or alter their strategies. It is inherently unfair to literally penalise those that worked within the rules and created an optimum package that allowed them to consistently score, and score well.
Again, the only reason that the tyres became a safety issue, is because too many teams gambled on the design of their cars, and failed.
So Newey's car this year is inherently fast, but was NOT a great
package, a good one but not a great one, and this is what people are missing out - it's not all about any one element (engine, gearbox, chasis, tyres etc.), but about the overall package.
The big teams threw the toys out of the pram (unacceptable) because they weren't winning as much as they thought it was their right to, and forced a rule change through that should never have happened.
Favourite racing series: F1, Indycar, NASCAR, GP2, F3, Formula E, Trophee Andros, DTM, WTCC, BTCC, World Endurance... etc. etc.
