I thik its pretty typical of the sloppy thinking that surrounds F1 in general (especially in the media) that anyone would say that it is only down to Newey that Vettel wins. Lets be realistic, before Vettel came, Newey's last title was in 1999 - thats 11 years before!
Any win is a combination of car design, team and driver. To say it is just the designer, or just the driver is ridiculous. It is all of them.
However certain people make a difference. Vettel seems to have unlocked something in Newey's designs that drivers had struggled to do in the previous 10 years. And that probably fed back to Newey and reignited him to do more of his magic that brought more out of Vettel. I'm obviously ignoring the team thing here completely, but the driver designer relationship here is a symbiosis.
Anyone who thinks its just Vettel is an idiot. But anyone who thinks its just the car or just Newey is just as big an idiot. Vettel has something that makes Neweys geniius work (or Newey has something that makes Vettel's genius work). But thats one of the signs of a true great. You need to bring out the greatness of others. All the great drivers has some kind of relationship with their team or designer. You need that to be in harmony.
Now look more closely at what hapens with Newey/Vettel
Vettel gave Newey his first post-mac win, but in a torro rosso - the b team, nota red bull
Often the red bull isnt great to start the season, but it always finishes well - thats not just Newey, thats feedback. From who? Doesnt take a genius to work out
Designers dont design a car for a driver - they design it to be as fast as they think they can make it - anyone who thinks otherwise has no concept of the physical principals involved
Very occasionally they may strike lucky and just make a great car, bust most times, its the interaction with the driver that make it truly great
With Newey, in his pre redbull cars, he usually made a "great" car at the start of the season and then the opposition caught up (hakkinen, hill)
But with red bull he made good cars that got better
A big part of that has to be vettel (or webber making cars that are more suited to his teammate)
Vettel always gets better towards the end of a season
That is why to say that he is just riding Newey wagons, is not to understand the situation
Sure, Newey is a genius
But it takes a top top to driver to exploit it to its full potential
And Vettel has done that better than any other driver Newey has ever had.
Edited by sensible, 27 September 2013 - 00:07.