Hamilton nearly won against Raikkonen and beat 2x WDC Alonso for most of the season.
Vettel did not win against Button (who did everything in order to lose his title in the 2nd half of the season, while Red Bull HAD the best car), and was battling with Barrichello for a distant 2nd place in the standings and barely beat Webber (who at times has looked dominant compared to him).
Vettel is quite good, but the age thing is overblown. Vettel has competed in over 40GPs, which is about 10 less than Hamilton. The experience thing just does not matter. Furthermore, Vettel has been testing F1 cars at the same time as Hamilton (2006). So he's been in the business for about the same time as Hamilton.
Whilst Hamilton has been able to have a string of 9 consecutive podiums against established stars like Raikkonen and Alonso, Vettel did not have it easy against Webber, RB and Button (at the same "age", and Vettel had the advantage of having 30 GPs under his belt).
well then Hamilton developes backwards.
I mean look at his perfmormance in 08, he only had ONE contender, he had a team that could focus on him without worrying about a baby in the other car, and there was one more race in 08 than there were in 07.
yet he still scored 11-12(?!) less points than in 07.
you cant compare performances between two drivers in two complety different seasons.
in 07/08 top teams hat absolutely no problem to get into q3 without even using the good tyres.
the top-cars were just that much better.
and now, make one mistake and you're out of the qualifying.
vettels perfmormance was good, atleast he destroyed Webber, the one lap wonder...