I think this is where RBR made their mistake.
I have no doubt THEY expected SV to be 0.2s or more faster than MW.

I suspect they came to this conclusion during winter testing in 09 (a very foolish thing to do considering MWs condition)

What has happened instead is that MW has been faster than SV at some tracks and SV faster than MW at others.
In the remaining tracks its been VERY close with SV being BULLETPROOF in his final Q3 runs and that leaving MW behind in the Q tally but only by 1/100ths of seconds.

On Balance and with the team support (Final Q3 runs, wing swaps and bogus team order attempts) SV should be ahead of MW.
But reliability and less than stellar race craft by SV have prevented this.

I dont get why its such a shock though.
Even last year when MW was injured he was ahead of SV at one point till he had a run of reliability, team pit stuff ups and mistakes of his own.

SV and MW are VERY close in performance.
I would argue that with the team support reversed it would be MW with the Q advantage and ultimately a bigger lead, but thats pure speculation on my part.

P.S. thanks flyer121 for bringing some level headed discussion to this thread rather than the usual Jez vomit fest

Three annoying things the Webber brigade are guilty of:

1. Unnecessary big-ups
2. Pathetic excuse making for poor performance
3. Deflectionary tactics (such as belittling his team mate) when there is no room to engineer pathetic excuses

Correct.

After Mark got the same chassis at SV (after the Oz GP) and up until they changed the break system that had plagued SV MW had been silent about the balance of the car (so I assume happy)

After the change MW had often mentioned difficulty in getting the balance right.
In the last NEW chassis MW got he was very unhappy with the balance and he was simply nowhere near SVs Q pace.

This may well be down to MW simply not getting the car set up right.
But I say to those who think this is not an issue, RBR have spent allot of time and effort trying to solve this problem for MW so THEY think it is an issue
AN did solve much of it with his new break set up but that had to be removed.

To disregard this issue is to suggest RBR and AN have been wasting time and money on solving it just to make headlines and create forum chat

More pathetic excuse making.

When Seb was beaten in Barcelona and Monaco it had nothing to do with the chassis. Mark was simply better on those tracks. Similarly Mark has been beaten recently because he has been performing poorly relative to his team mate, nothing to do with chassis.

Hypocrital if you think otherwise.

There's a lot of heavy bias to Webber here lately so I thought I would critique his season:

Bahrain: Qualified 6th when Vettel was on pole. Should have been in second to inherit the win.
Australia: Lost pole to Vettel. Messy race after being dropped into traffic by the team. Crashed into Hamilton.
Malaysia: Pole after a gamble on inters. Lost the win to Vettel.
China: Lost pole to Vettel. Passed on track by Vettel and Hamilton after pitstops. Later at SC restart was barged off to 12th by Hamilton.
Spain: Pole + win.
Monaco: Pole + win.
Turkey: Inherited pole after Vettel had broken roll bar in Q3. Chased down by Vettel and they crashed.
Canada: Beat Vettel to front row. Had 5 place grid penalty. Wrong strategy in race and finished 5th.
Valencia: Lost pole to Vettel. Terrible start and crashed into Kovalainen.
Great Britain: Lost pole to Vettel. Passed him at first corner and went on to win.
Germany: Qualified 4th when Vettel was on pole. Dropped back to sixth and then cruised home with oil problems.
Hungary: Lost pole to Vettel. Inherited win when Vettel had drive through.
Belgium: Pole, Vettel 4th. Fell to sixth on start. Repassed Alonso and inherited second from Vettel & Button crash and Kubica pitstop.
Italy: Qualified 4th to Vettel's 6th. Fell to 9th on first lap. Finished 6th to Vettel's 4th.
Singapore: Qualified 5th to Vettel's 2nd. Jumped McLarens in pitstops then collided with Hamilton.
Japan: Lost pole to Vettel, finished second.
Korea: Lost pole to Vettel, crashed out from second.

You may have a point but all of the factors are not easy to fix would be my first guess.
As Gareth says , even weight is tricky to fix but FIA may have fixed it already as much as it can be fixed.

I am wondering why do we continue to see smallish guys rise to the top in F1.
Lewis , Vettel , Massa come to mind - even Alonso is not so large up close as he appears on screen.

You can of course though place the ballast lower

A timely reminder.

Added a few bits, but otherwise good summary.

Thanks for the summary.

As you can see it's been a scrappy season in the best case. Again, if you park aside Hungary, where Seb had Mark covered before the brain fade, Mark has not looked like winning a race for a whole 8 races where he dominated Silverstone.


Flyer - I am a very keen supporter of Mark, but he just keeps doing things that make it difficult to support him in that unconditional way. Big fans are often harsh critics, and I know Mark is capable of so much more than what he has recently been achieving.

I agree that Webber has looked a bit lacklusture lately, but it may simply have been the conservation mode. Now it may be different.
I also feel that Vettel is a superfast kid on one lap , so even as a top Q expert Webber will struggle to match him. But he did quite well to stay so close in Suzuka and Korea ( with an extra lap of fuel).

Having never rated Webber very highly and always estimating Vettel as top draw, I admit that I was a bit surprised at how close he was to him in low fuel Q sessions.

Cool if you are a Mark supporter and therefore a harsh critic as well. Nothing wrong with it but its pretty rare phenomenon on this forum.

although i`m convinced webber is a better driver, i must admit that they both were very poor this season. and it`s not really funny that, after so many races, none of them can feel comfortable, regarding wdc position, with such a huge car advantage.
and their team is a joke. the way they `ve managed their drivers is going to turn some fellow in third best car into a champion.
and to be honest, i think fernando is the best driver on the grid, and he was my preseasonal bet for wdc this year, over mark webber, but only because i suspected rbr reliability issues, but on the other hand i wasn`t aware of this speed advantage rbr had over competition.

it`s ridiculous people arguing vettel should or should not support webber in the last two races, especially when the former still has mathematical chances for the title.
it`s ridiculous i can`t agree with those who say let them race each other, because it should be obvious at this stage of the season in that car.
it`s ridiculous rbr drivers must sill race others in much slower cars. and they`re lucky hot headed lewis got his brain fades.

webber was just too weak this season without support from the team.

vettel is far from being mature enough to deliver (just like lewis was in 2007 and also in 2008 imo, though luckily won wdc over not so great massa), those fastest laps in the fastest car are just ridiculous.

why people are claiming button was lucky last year and those two have been great this season is beyond me.
whoever of the two will win is going to be really lucky champion.

I find posts like the above just unfathomable. Alonso was arguably the worst driver of the top 6 runners in the first half of the year. He threw the thing at the wall a few times, allowed Massa past to often in races and made a lot of errors. If he'd have kept his head at Monaco and Spa he'd be world champion right now.

Hamilton is the same, he had a brilliant first half of the year then had a batch of poor races banging into other cars. Not to mention just how lucky he was at spa not to collect the wall with the race won.

People have short memories.

Donno what is going on here.

The last year this forum killed Kimi Raikkonen.
This year this forum is trying to kill others.

Webber lead the championship no matter what, that is the name of the game.
Vettel got much pole, good on him, but he was and IS not the points leader, as simple as that.

Silly RBR and all those who work for this team to bend this fact. I hop the truth will prevail.

Only caught the tail end of the BBC Korea interview(getting a beer),but basically he said Mark was a very good driver and it would be very difficult for Ferrari to beat him for the WDC, someone that Rec. the race would know exactly what was said. My wife,who watched the whole thing,said at the time said the tone of the conversation sounded like he was talking about one of his own drivers instead of a rival,complete opposite to the propaganda comments from RB which in almost every case is slanted towards not upsetting Seb.

Guys can you please focus on the topic instead of each other? You all know it's against forum rules yet you do it over and over again in this thread.

Posts deleted. Please do not discuss each other and stay on topic.

"Announced" on Radio & TV this morning in Sydney that RB will be "fully backing" Mark to win the WDC,not sure what "fully" means and no details or names used.It sounded more like an infomercial for RB than a news item but i guess time will tell what it all supposed to mean.

I just thought I might add a vettel commentary similiar to yours...


The thing is, every time vettel just beats webber to pole you ahve to remember that parts of the car like the blown diffuser were originally driveable for webber and not for vettel and were changed to assist vettel due to his lack of experience and inability to drive around problems and different parts.
Webbers also a bigger guy and needs or the techy weight distribution he can get against pint sized hamilton alonso and vettel.


My point is...
WEbber has made a few errors this year. But vettel has made more. And while vettel may have blown up on track spectacularily, webebr was been dealt with hard stratergies and coments like 'hungary was completely gifted' are rather stupid if you watch the timings of how quick webber was and how his racecraft allowed him to conserve and then pull it off.

Also, unlike vettel, Webber has had stratergies were he has to overtake alot. I'm honestly strugeling to think of a time when vettel was told you need to pass 6 cars or something.

his wins and have been led from corner 1 on thef irst lap. His moves up the field are due to stratergy (e.g. monza).

Vettel may be slightly faster, but Webber has, without teamsupport, been able to put up a fight and prove that racecraft helps alot more.

If the rb7 next year is only close to the ferraris and mclarens, then I think webber will prevail over vettel due to the fact vettel can't just pole and run like he has done thi year.

Silverstone.

If Vettel started on pole 9x this year, he had nobody tp overtake on those ocasions.

I very much doubt MW will be at RBR in 2011.

The recent comments by the team indicate SVs partner (who ever it may be) will be treated as No2 in all situations form day one regardless of how they perform.

I believe you are correct in your assessment of SV in traffic.
Even if he is faster than his team mate I would expect him to be outperformed over the year if RBR dont have a car where SV can put it on poll.
Having said this the RB6s lack of top end speed and the less than spectacular Renault engine are part of the problem
This and the tricky behaviour when in dirty air.
MW has shown that it is possible to overtake in the RB6 but always he has had to do this with on the limit dives in places most people dont make passing moves
LH on the other hand who everyone thinks is a master at overtaking (and he is rather good) has the benefit of being able to make most of his moves down the strait in a simple drag race.

As to SVs engine trouble, I dont think he is an engine breaker.
He has however pushed the duty cycle on his engines and that places him in positions where he has to race with engines that have done MORE hard laps than MW has to.

He was however completely responsible for his curb jumping that resulted in suspension and break failures.
Numerous times the team was on the radio asking him to ease off on the curbs.
MW had some of the same trouble in practice but altered his driving accordingly (you can read about this in the race reports)
(the spark plug thing was not SVs fault the TEAM ran him too lean)


To sum up.
SV is at the very least one of if not the best qualifier in F1 at the moment, but he has a few more years of race experience needed to make him the complete package.
I personally think MW is just as fast as SV in Q with the Q count not showing the closeness in pace (obviously RBR and most SV fans disagree with this)

Silverstone wasn't a stratergy... he had to pit because of a puncture and ended up at the back.. A stratergy is... we will pit you early, and then you need to get through the traffic and undercut the mclarens when they pit. That is a traffic stratergy.

And vettel didn't do silverstone that well anyway. Bump bump, held alot and then crashed past a force india.


Sanjiro,

Red bull is a mess, as an aussie I hope webber is in a competitive team next year, red bull or otherwise. However, Webber is much more suited (I think) to neweys designs arther than vettel. Newey's designs are already on the limit with everything about to brake. One big thing webber can do is know where the braking point is and driving around problems. Vettel, for all his speed can not.

I didn't know about the spark plug. But yes, the australian gp problem which was replicated with him jumping the kerbs again in spain has caused problems. He for some reason doesn't know how to drive around a problem. He just sees lap time and guns it, and when it brakes, then evenone feels pitty for him because he car broke down.


If webber is still @ Red bull in 2011, and the car is with the mclaren's and ferrari's then once webber shows how to overtake and vettel shows he can't they will ahve to even it up.

Agree with Quali. It is one lap so lots of things like weight distribution, etc. all do have an effect while things like racecraft and how well you can manage situations don't.

Vettel is bloody fast, but a bit arragant (stupid fingure) and can't drive around problems to save a championship... oh, and he likes to crash.

If WEbber isn't at RBR next year then Ihope ferrari isn't of massa (who has been saying along with shmeds that they ain't happy). Alonso and Webber and both friends, and webber is mentally strong enough to race wheel to wheel with alonso. Pitty though that webber has the oportunity to take neweys designs to the fullest but the designs keep having to be changed to suit crash bandicoot.


Also, something to note, Vettel got a new chassis to start the season, webber had the testing one. That may exaplin why suddenly he jumped onthe pace in europe and the spainish gp was the first one with a new chassis.

unoc your commentary is very different to mine, because I gave factual information as to what happened, rather than wild nationalistic justifications.

My take on it is that the times Webber has had to run such leftfield strategies was when he had qualified badly or made mistakes that put him out of the race on the standard strategy. For example the stint in Hungary was to get back in front of Alonso, who passed him at the start. And no matter how great the stint was (and it was), he still would have finished second if not for Vettel's screw up.

Unoc's comments were very rose tinted however to say you just presented factual informations is not quite correct either.
You chose to paint every incident in the worst possible light and gave no context.
Treated this way you can make almost ANYTHING sound bad

Probably...
But SV did screw up, just as MW has screwed up (like letting SV slip through at the start)
Thats part of the landscape in 2011

EVERY driver in the top 6 has had a scrappy year

Yeah but the point is, Webber has had a much scrappier year than Vettel and with parity would be 63 points (or more if you count Seb's mech. failures in qualifying) further behind right now due to more silly mistakes in qualifying and the races. I think they are within thousandths in terms of pace, because I do believe Seb probably has a default advantage of around 0.05-0.1s due to weight. So if Seb has lost that many points to mech failures, how did Mark lose them?

If you take the first race as example. Webber screwed his final run. It's a fact. But you guys don't count this as an 'error', when it is what determined his poor finish compared to his teammate.

Please elaborate, I would be most happy to hear your explanation.

? it was an error, who does not think it was.

My only point on MW first 2 races is this.
MW was using the RB6 winter testing chassis.
SV at that time had the new race generation version with all the latest developments.
When MW received his first 2010 race chassis he was all over SV.

SV would only be 63 points up on MW if you remove his reliability issues (some of his own making some not)
whilst not taking into account where MW would have been if the team actually gave a crap.

RBR have run this years races with little to no regard to MW.
Even races where he easily had SVs measure like Monaco, RBR chose to leave MW out hanging in the breeze risking a safety car ruining his entire race so that they could secure SVs P2
What they did in Australia was pathetic, to throw away a solid P2 when EVERY OTHER team managed to get it right, all the SV fans see here is MWs collision with LH (no where near as bad as SV hitting JB)

Nope, you didn't give only factual information, you added some colourful description to twist the facts and create suitable impression. The same way unoc, did.
Examples:
- "inherited" Turkey pole. Nothing like that happened. Correct phrase: pole positions - while Vettel had some technical problems. Before someone says it, don't give me Horner's quote - the fact is we don't know what time would Vettel have achieved without technical problems. It doesn't matter which driver we're talking about here.
- "inherited" (again) some place in Spa, because Vettel's crash. Again no such thing. The fact is Vettel crashed by himself - bad driving - no inheritance (anyone disagrees?). Webber kept his head and drove good race. BTW you forgot he also "inherited" another place when Kubica made pitstop mistake.
- Hungary - the same - was it Vettel's mistake or not? If it was - no inheritance. It should always work both ways. Resulting in phrases like "qualified fifth when Vettel on pole" see: he should have qualified higher. Or "lost pole". What do you mean lost? How about: "Vettel inherited Bahrain pole after many mistakes from Webber in Q3". Crash, bad race awareness (Hungary) = is the same as mistakes in qualifying,
- some other omissions and inconsistencies in wording (Canada pole).

It looks to me that you saw heavy bias and tried to equalise it by using bias yourself. That's OK - happens all the time (I'm guilty as well) - knee jerk reaction. Result is - never ending, ping pong discussions. Like this one.

Nobody is going to exonerate Alonso for his mistakes in the first part of the season, but he is driving with no mistakes when it matters.

I can assure you it does not mean Vettel will be instructed to assist Webber. That won´t happen while Vettel still has a shot at the title himslf, and quite rightly so.

I agree with you sanjiro but at Australia it wasn't intentional ... they were just painfully inept as a team at pit strategy.

Iotar ... It was a conscious attempt to critique Webber's season as I said in the post. In response:

Turkey - Seb was clearly faster than Webber in Q1 and Q2 and looked like he was different to Spain/Monaco (placebo?).
Spa - In that case I meant inherited as the 3 drivers I listed (included Kubica btw) all retired from in front of him.
Hungary - On the strategy Webber took to pass Alonso, he sacrificed any chance he had to beat Vettel. Until Vettel screwed up. By 'inherited it' I am not saying Mark didn't deserve the win! Just that he would not have won without it.

Review of Seb's season to come.

True...
I have often accused them of ineptitude when it came to pit strategy for more than one car.
SVs lost points from mechanical failure are equally not through intent by the team, simply a failure to provide suitable machinery.

We should not cherry pick the non driver stuff ups we like and make it look like the other driver has not had problems to contend with

That's a good a post on the matter I would say.
Pace wise they are close , closer than earlier thought, We know how Vettel lost points , so where exactly did Mark lose those points.

I am not doing any maths but this year's points system may have something to do with it.

For one - the difference between P2 & P3 is ridiculously smaller than P1 and P2

But team strategy evens itself out does it not? Mark did well from team strategy in Hungary and Singapore, so you can't complain.

Monaco I don't even know why you brought up as yes it was risky and stupid but they were trying hard to put Mark in clear air ahead of Rosberg so he would not be held up, which they did, and Mark emphatically won regardless.

I think you see problems with Mark's strategy because the team are trying hard to compensate for the position that Mark puts himself in to begin with - Australia is a case in point - would the team need to consider tactics if he had qualified on pole - simple answer is no.

Exactly. You only need to be ahead after the last race as they say. Alonso is a money-time performer. He showed everyone how it is done in 05/06 and he is showing everyone again how it is done this year.

The season is not yet over though. Webber and Vettel still have a chance of winning this.

Mark Webber has a point when he commented early on in the season that its quite rare to have everything fall into place to create a scenario where a team mate is actually in a position to help his team mate.

With Red Bull it all depends on RB6 maintaining its dominance. That way formation 1-2 leading positions can easily be orchestrated. This is also a reason why Red Bull need both drivers to produce their maximum, so that if they were to consider team tactics, then they maximise their chances of actually being in a position to do so.

No disrespect intended but this is going nowhere. What you wrote is not unbiased summary. What you wrote above is subjective view of events to fit your own overall impression. These are not facts (and it is a fact ) It's a mixture of:
- omissions - why didn't you mention engine problems at the beginning of Bahrain (should have finished second - wrong, no, he should not), Australia pitstop problems costing some places - how many?
- inconsistencies - be consistent at least in your description - driver X qualified first while driver Y qualified 5, use always the same pattern.
- one sided point of view - Monza - how about was faster in qualifying and the race, finished behind Vettel only because weird strategy worked for Vettel, got stuck behind Hulkenberg (cutting chicanes) and earlier Vettel. It works always both ways.

- selective facts - lost places at the start in Spa (btw why?) and didn't in Bahrain; Vettel was faster in practice in Turkey therefore Webber "inherited" the pole? Who cares about FP? Not a word about wing gate?; Gamble on tyres in Malaysia - would you have described it the same way if Vettel won the qualifying - implication is he only qualified higher because of the "gamble" - this is subjective and not the fact - it creates certain impression; only "lost places", how about gained places by overtaking - Australia/Massa, Monza/Hulkenberg and so on. The aim is to create the full picture of driver's season. Or is it not?

- selective use of words - terrible start, lost pole, inherited - we're not going to agree on that, when driver in front of you crashes by himself in difficult conditions and you don't, it's not luck but skills. How about the Spa start - unlucky or his fault entirely. "Vettel inherited position in front of Webber despite the awful qualifying (3 places behind 1 to 4) only because the latter had technical problems at the start" "Despite this gifted and undeserved advantage he lost it by crashing into Button (once again) and later in the race had a collision with Liuzzi" Sounds similar? You should use it in Vettel's season review.

The list goes on and on. It's all about consistency and objective and honest approach to every single event. Not Webber/Vettel but driver X and Y.

Well here's something out of left field. Maybe Horner's seemingly destabilising comment regarding building the team around Seb was made as a response to a request from Mark for a release from his contract so he can join Ferrari. This could also explain Domelicali's praise for Mark's driving ability. I dunno but I cannot think of any other reason why Horner would make such a comment at this stage of the title chase.

Great post iotar!

One could write a similar list for Vettel. And much moreso Hamilton. And even Alonso.

All of the championship contenders have made mistakes.

But Mark Webber's speed has been a revelation for many. How many of these Webber haters wrote early on that Vettel would destroy Webber in 2010? But look at how close they are, it's been nip and tuck all the way between them. The only time Vettel looked clearly quicker than Webber was when he got his "software" corner exiting update, but Webber has come back at him since Spa. Vettel hasn't led Mark in the standings since Silverstone.

These are two evenly matched drivers, anyone saying anything else is unable to set aside their bias.

Vettel.

Bahrain: Pole. Spark plug failure while leading, finished 4th.
Australia: Pole. Wheel nut failure while leading, DNF.
Malaysia: Lost pole to Webber, passed him at first corner and headed 1-2 finish.
China: Pole. Scrappy race. Overtook Webber on track. Went wide letting Alonso through. Finished 6th to Webber's 8th.
Spain: Lost pole to Webber. A slow pitstop and brake issues dropped him behind Hamilton and Alonso. 3rd after Hamilton DNF.
Monaco: Qualified 3rd behind Webber and Kubica. Passed Kubica at the start and finished 2nd.
Turkey: Qualified 3rd after broken roll bar in Q3. Passed by Lewis on first lap. Crashed into Webber. Had puncture and parked car when may have finished 4th.
Canada: Qualified second after Webber had gearbox penalty. On wrong strategy, then had gearbox issues and cruised home to 4th.
Valencia: Pole + win.
Great Britain: Pole. Passed by Webber at start and had puncture from Hamilton. Finished 7th.
Germany: Pole. Jumped by Alonso and Massa at the start. Pitted early but it didn't work, finished 3rd.
Hungary: Pole. Fell asleep under SC and given a drive through. Rejoined behind Alonso in 3rd and couldn't pass. Webber wins.
Belgium: Qualified 4th, Webber on pole. Scrappy race. Crashed into Button and given a drive through. Puncture by Liuzzi. Finished 15th.
Italy: Qualified 6th. Strange engine issues dropped him behind Webber. Recovered with a long middle stint and finished 4th.
Singapore: Pole. Lost the lead to Alonso at the start and was unable to re-pass him.
Japan: Pole + win.
Korea: Pole. Engine failure while leading, DNF.

I can´t see Webber at Ferrari. Firstly, he´s just not good enough, and secondly, he´s not a team player. He and Alonso would be butting heads constantly. No, Massa is the perfect #2 for Fred.
Having said that, I wouldn´t mind seeing Mark pull a "Turkey" on Alonso. That would crack me up no end.

Not good enough?
Not a team player? WRONG. What he won't do is bend over and play second fiddle when he is capable of winning in equal equipment. Mark and Fred are mates anyway, they'd make a good team I reckon but it probably won't happen.

Mostly right, added a few things.

Care to do Hamilton's? Think it make both Red Bull drivers look mighty solid.

One of the really interesting things about this season has been Vettel's failure to capitalise on all of those pole positions. Some reliability issues, some poor choices (trying to push Webber and Alonso into the wall, and losing the lead because of it in Silverstone and Germany) and obviously the monumental blunder in Hungary.

He should have walked it, had his race performance matched his quali performance. There's a lot of improvement in him, and I trust he will make that improvement. He will be a serious force if he manages it.

Given Berger's comments yesterday I am starting to wonder.

@iotar specific incidents:

Bahrain engine problems - He repassed Button quickly anyway and unsure how it would affect him from pole instead of in the pack @ T1.

"Vettel was faster in practice in Turkey therefore Webber "inherited" the pole? Who cares about FP?" - He was faster in Q1 and Q2, and the suspension issue happened on his first run in Q3. Maybe Webber would have beaten him anyway, who knows.

Not a word about wing gate? - Wing gate was more about the perceived treatment than actual performance loss. Webber made a mistake in S2 on his last run and was only 0.14 down on Seb.

And sorry if you don't like my style. I didn't say I was unbiased, I said was giving factual info and not necessarily all of it, no one's perfect.

@gtd I thought falling asleep was more insulting.

I don't remember the race exactly like that

Hah cheers Bunny.