Sebastian Vettel is the youngest double world champion in Formula 1 history; he's had a dream of a season with four races of nineteen still to go, he has won nine times, taken twelve pole positions and been on the podium in all the others except one. He’s been supremely dominant this year, exploiting the advantage of the Red Bull, the best car in the field, to its maximum.
These statistics make it seem like he’s had an easy time of it, but it’s actually been a pretty competitive year. The Red Bull is a fantastic car in qualifying conditions, but come Sunday, the races have been a lot more competitive.
McLaren in particular have wasted a lot of opportunities to pressure Red Bull more, making team mistakes as well as having certain drivers throw away a lot of good points, but this is to take nothing away from Vettel.
The regulations this year have dictated that drivers need to take care of their tyres and manage their fuel load, combining that with going as fast as possible. This is where we can see that Vettel has matured into one of the most complete drivers in the field.
He has understood how to use the new Pirelli tyres better than anyone, his destruction of Mark Webber in the same car has shown just how on ahead of the game he’s been.
He used his qualifying advantage to full effect, often pulling away at the beginning and then measuring that gap for the rest of the race, intelligently using the best of the tyres when he’s needed too.
He’s won races he probably shouldn’t have particularly in Spain and Monaco, he’s shown us he can fight to the front as well with a fantastic move in Italy to go round the outside of Alonso with two wheels on the grass.
After winning six of the first eight races he set himself up for the championship but what was most impressive was the way he came back after the mid-season break. Before the gap, he’d failed to win any of the last three races, the pressure was mounting, people were predicting a fight back from McLaren and Ferrari but he quickly quashed any idea of that happening scoring a hat trick of wins to set himself up for glory in Japan.
Even there his will to win was strong, forcing Button onto the grass at the start and battling Alonso hard after dropping to third due to a conservative strategy from Red Bull. Vettel wanted to be anything but that, his desire to win is so overwhelming you can guarantee he’ll already be wanting to win the final four races and look to win the title again next year. Could we be seeing the start of another period of German dominance?
Watching the BBC Formula 1 forum on the red button, they played a VT of the illustrious company Vettel was joining as he became only the ninth driver to win back to back world titles, and the enormity of what he had achieved at such a young age hit him as he wiped a tear from his eye.
He is aware of the history of the sport, of the records that have been set particularly by his idol Michael Schumacher and he wants them for himself. He has such passion for the sport; it’s all he’s dreamt about.
Last year after he won the title, people were still sceptical about him; too accident prone, can only win from the front, cracks under pressure, despite winning the final race of the year under huge intensity. Admittedly he doesn’t have many battles through the pack and that’s still an area to consider, but that’s mainly because he’s used the advantage given to him to be at the front.
This year he’s learnt from past mistakes, his first title gave him confidence, he’s driven fast, intelligent and with a calm assurance that could see him win many more times in the years to come. Many people rate Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton as the best there is, but as the year has gone on it’s become harder to look beyond just how good this guy it, it’s time to face up to a future where Sebastian Vettel is king, he has truly been the best driver out there this year, and the scary thing for his rivals is that he’s going to get even better.
No comments:
Post a Comment