Great to see Ricci doing his thing and just showing up Vettel however I wouldn't brush off Vettel so easily.
The best teams have had the best drivers over the decades and with the best teams come the best cars and the wins. Nothing much has changed in that dept. Vettel was doing what Hammy is now. Just driving away from the pack with a car that was down on straightline speed from the others. Hammy has a car that is faster than everyone else's (except for Rosberg)and is driving away from them. No surprises. Alonso still proving he is a class driver but needed that chequered flag to fall on that lap otherwise it would have been Ricci on the 3rd step. Had Vettel not held up Ricci....who knows???

 

Well, I hate to be right all the time. I predicted the race result (Hammy, Nico, Alonso) and the fact that Ricciardo would school Vettel yet again. To his defense, Vettel has been very mature in his analysis of the current situation. He knows he's being handed his *** by the rookie, and admits so. He's growing on me.

What have I been saying for the last 4 years? Maybe I wouldn't go so far as calling him "manufactured". He's certainly got the goods. However, as has been proven, he's got no "superior driving skills". He's surrounded by guys who are as capable, and some who are more capable than him. Including his rookie partner. I give it a race or two of more Ricciardo domination before he's the "de facto" #1 for the team.
And I can't wait to see how Vettel and that asswipe Helmut Marko deal with THAT.

 

Helmut seems just as upset as Vettel of the current situation. Not sure why a team consultant would favor one driver over another, but it's quite clear, Vettel is his boy.

 

What today told me was that Vettel is in danger of losing his #1 position within the team and the reason I say this is because when he disobeyed team orders last year, he WAS faster than Webber and proved to be correct. However, if you disobey team orders and your teammate STILL passes you, then clearly you've got a problem with pace and in the dog eat dog world of F1, they are going to back the faster driver.... regardless of how many title you own. I wouldn't discount Vettel yet, he will adapt to the car, but he is usually slower than others to adapt to change. Once he is dialed in, however, he is deadly.

It's pretty clear, that the Ferrari is not a great car and yet Alonso put it on the podium. Don't show me a driver who can pedal the best car to the front, show me a driver who can pedal a car that isn't supposed to be there to the front. Alonso is that driver and to a lesser extent, Hulkenberg.

What the hell happened to McLaren??? From a double podium in OZ to this?

 

Maybe 'cause their both German?


Good points, Pete. I personally don't like Alonso, but drives like today's prove that he's the best driver in that field. The Ferrari is a dog of a chassis, yet he manages to park it in the podium. Those are real "superior driving skills"!

 

I would love to see an IROC type race with spec cars for all the F1 drivers. Clearly some drivers are more talented than others but a big part of it is the car as well.

I know there is a lot of schadenfreude going on with each of Vettel's frustration but he is doing himself no favor saying "touch luck" and then claiming he let Ricciardo through. Ricciardo passed Vettel - he wasn't let through.

Alonso is the most skilled driver in F1 right now. Year after year he has managed to get points out of a poorly designed Ferrari.

 

Alonso was in conservation mode. He knew he had nothing for the Mercs and so he turned his attention at controlling the gap back to Ricciardo.

My argument for Alonso being the best race driver is that year after year he does awesome things with less than stellar machinery. Hamilton in my book is second because given the best equipment he'll beat anyone including Alonso. But on subpar equipment he tends to get frustrated and loses his cool.

Hamilton may be faster but Alonso is better at race craft, hence the better race driver.

As for the argument that Vettel needs time to get accustomed to the new cars, that's bogus. He needs time for the team to cater to his every wish. Go back and see what his performance was like when he was on equal terms with his team mate. It's not good.

I can't wait for Europe!

 

What have the first 4 races of 2014 thought me, considering new cars, new technology and according to many less downforce and turbos these are more "drivers cars".

1) Vettel, as very eloquently put by MJSpeed, was a "manufactured champion". He has no answer for his your teammate in any facet.
2) Team orders exist at every team, don't kid yourself
3) Vettel's toddler like temper tantrum's cost the team and Riccardo a very likely podium
4) Lewis is great driver but even more so in the right car and he sure as hell has it this year
5) The best way to benchmark a driver is put him in the same car in the same track on the same day. Alonso has been able to outperform Kimi in every way and to me Kimi is one of the most talented drivers on the grid.

This tells me that Fernando really is a cut above and Lewis and Kimi can be right there with him on any given day. The last four Driver's trophies should be awarded to Adrian Newey.

 

Very valid points, agdamis. Couldn't agree more. Particularly with this line:
I've said it many times before: any of a number of drivers given RBR's last 4 year's chassis would've been able to do exactly the same Vettel did, namely get pole and drive away from the rest of the field. We are starting to see the true Vettel, not the one behind all the smoke and mirrors. Sure, the kid's talented, no doubt. But he's not the "end-all-be-all" that some have make him out to be. He's a very talented driver, that given a superior car can win with it time and again. When he's given less than perfect equipment, well, the results speak for themselves, don't they?

 

Kimi may tame the prancing horse yet!

What I want to know is does Hamilton wear that ICE under his helmet or does he have someone keep them polished in a velvet box for when he removes his helmet?

 

Let me just rub it in, for the Vettel fanboys: Ricciardo finished 25 seconds ahead of him. In an identical car. "Superior driving skills" my ***.

 

Well the gap between conservation mode and flat out must be pretty skinny then. Alonso was cutting his fastest laps at the end of the race as much as anyone. (As much as his tyres would allow) Sure, he has the skills to pace the result to a degree, but had Ricciardo not got held up more than Alonso did by the backmarkers in the last 5 laps there's no way he would have held him off...conservation or not. He would have been 4th to Ricci's 3rd no doubt. Not saying that makes either one the better driver. Just saying it how it would have been.

 

^we will never know thanks to his superior driving skilled teammate.

 

Good race overall, not nearly as exciting as Bahrain but not exactly a snooze fest either. Hopefully Nico's car will work better next time so that we can watch the fight for 1st, not just for 3rd.

Interesting tidbit from Joe Saward:

This is just as embarrassing as the guy who punched the full course yellow on accident in the Nascar race a few weeks ago. And is right on the heels of the USCR officiating disaster at Sebring. What is going on with professional motorsports these days??

 

+1. Although Nico didn't have telemetry signals with the pitwall, they could still talk to him, but we've seen Kimi in the past and others without radio communications and if they didn't see the pit board, this could have been disasterous if this rule were not in place.

Just a guess, but it was probably a Chinese diplomat or dignitary that they had waving the flag as they do at other venues and he picked up the wrong flag a lap too early.