Before I start this one, I should make clear that I like Sebastian Vettel and consider him to have great potential in F1. It is not his fault that he was picked as the replacement for Scott Speed in the Toro Rosso team but it is inevitable that I should make comparisons as a result. With Scott now playing with his countrymen in stock cars, the manner of his departure from F1 is something of a dead issue but I still feel the need to speak up for him when others make ill-informed judgements of his performance in the sport.
Sebastian Vettel
Obviously, the way to assess Vettel is to compare him to his team mate, Antonio Liuzzi, and, until Fuji, it was clear that Liuzzi had the upper hand. No surprise in that, really - Vettel is young and inexperienced in F1 racing so we should give him time to find his feet, just as we did with Kovalainen. I would add that Liuzzi is much better than anyone remembers and so the rookie's task is even harder.
But we also need to be realistic about Vettel's performance in the Japanese GP. He did extremely well to get through to Q3 but comparisons with Liuzzi are not possible since the Italian was on dry settings in qualifying (an odd decision but justifiable as a gamble for a team running at the back of the grid). And Vettel showed real ability in the race, running with the leaders until his unfortunate incident with Mark Webber.
Let us not get too excited, however; the likelihood is that Scott would have done at least as well in the same conditions. He showed at Monaco that, when the car was capable of it, he could lift it above its expected position and he is also known to be pretty good in the wet. As far as I am concerned, the jury is still out on young Vettel and it remains to be seen whether he is any improvement on the American.
We also need to give Liuzzi his due in driving a solid race that would have resulted in a point for the team without Spyker's protest. So it could be said that Tonio still performed better than his team mate in the long run - he finished the race, Vettel didn't.
Vettel's penalty of ten grid positions in the Chinese GP seems unduly harsh to me. His removal of Mark Webber and himself from the race was a rookie's mistake and should be treated with a little more leniency. It is understandable that Webber should be annoyed at having the chance of a win so unceremoniously removed from his grasp, but any future grid penalty imposed on Vettel does not give the Australian any compensation. I suppose the theory is that such a stern penalty will encourage Vettel not to repeat the mistake but, judging from the rookie's despair after limping back to the pits, he is hardly in need of such a reminder.
Moving on from the Toro Rosso team, I must say that I find the FIA's reaction to the Ferrari email upset rather strange. Instead of behaving with their usual disregard for the opinions of the teams and rigidly applying the rules, they have apologized profusely and vowed to back up their communication systems in future. It could be said that Ferrari caused their own problems by not checking their email more frequently and deciding to go for a very dubious tire strategy in the first place, but instead we have the unheard of situation where the FIA are taking the blame.
The inescapable conclusion is that the FIA is in Ferrari's pocket, just as so many have said before. I do not need to say such things as, "Would the same apology have been forthcoming had the team been McLaren?"; it is only necessary to remember the FIA's intransigence over a far more important matter when all of the teams except Ferrari needed a little flexibility in the rules at Indianapolis in 2005.
If the FIA want to be seen as impartial, they should stop providing so much evidence that the reverse is true. Instead of apologizing, they should have penalized Ferrari for contravening the rules, regardless of whether or not the team received the email in time. That would be consistency.
In spite of all the controversies (or perhaps because of them), the Fuji GP was highly entertaining. There was hardly a dull moment throughout the race and one can hardly blame the TV director for missing a few incidents. A few more races like that and the criticisms of F1 as boring would die away.
Maybe we should have a few more races halfway up a mountain in autumn...
Sebastian Vettel
Obviously, the way to assess Vettel is to compare him to his team mate, Antonio Liuzzi, and, until Fuji, it was clear that Liuzzi had the upper hand. No surprise in that, really - Vettel is young and inexperienced in F1 racing so we should give him time to find his feet, just as we did with Kovalainen. I would add that Liuzzi is much better than anyone remembers and so the rookie's task is even harder.
But we also need to be realistic about Vettel's performance in the Japanese GP. He did extremely well to get through to Q3 but comparisons with Liuzzi are not possible since the Italian was on dry settings in qualifying (an odd decision but justifiable as a gamble for a team running at the back of the grid). And Vettel showed real ability in the race, running with the leaders until his unfortunate incident with Mark Webber.
Let us not get too excited, however; the likelihood is that Scott would have done at least as well in the same conditions. He showed at Monaco that, when the car was capable of it, he could lift it above its expected position and he is also known to be pretty good in the wet. As far as I am concerned, the jury is still out on young Vettel and it remains to be seen whether he is any improvement on the American.
We also need to give Liuzzi his due in driving a solid race that would have resulted in a point for the team without Spyker's protest. So it could be said that Tonio still performed better than his team mate in the long run - he finished the race, Vettel didn't.
Vettel's penalty of ten grid positions in the Chinese GP seems unduly harsh to me. His removal of Mark Webber and himself from the race was a rookie's mistake and should be treated with a little more leniency. It is understandable that Webber should be annoyed at having the chance of a win so unceremoniously removed from his grasp, but any future grid penalty imposed on Vettel does not give the Australian any compensation. I suppose the theory is that such a stern penalty will encourage Vettel not to repeat the mistake but, judging from the rookie's despair after limping back to the pits, he is hardly in need of such a reminder.
Moving on from the Toro Rosso team, I must say that I find the FIA's reaction to the Ferrari email upset rather strange. Instead of behaving with their usual disregard for the opinions of the teams and rigidly applying the rules, they have apologized profusely and vowed to back up their communication systems in future. It could be said that Ferrari caused their own problems by not checking their email more frequently and deciding to go for a very dubious tire strategy in the first place, but instead we have the unheard of situation where the FIA are taking the blame.
The inescapable conclusion is that the FIA is in Ferrari's pocket, just as so many have said before. I do not need to say such things as, "Would the same apology have been forthcoming had the team been McLaren?"; it is only necessary to remember the FIA's intransigence over a far more important matter when all of the teams except Ferrari needed a little flexibility in the rules at Indianapolis in 2005.
If the FIA want to be seen as impartial, they should stop providing so much evidence that the reverse is true. Instead of apologizing, they should have penalized Ferrari for contravening the rules, regardless of whether or not the team received the email in time. That would be consistency.
In spite of all the controversies (or perhaps because of them), the Fuji GP was highly entertaining. There was hardly a dull moment throughout the race and one can hardly blame the TV director for missing a few incidents. A few more races like that and the criticisms of F1 as boring would die away.
Maybe we should have a few more races halfway up a mountain in autumn...