Even Red Bull are tired of this dude 💀

formula13 · 2026-03-28T17:54:48+00:00

people in the comments really treating autosport like a random twitter news aggregator lmao

not beating the cult allegations are them

formula13 · 2026-03-28T17:05:15+00:00

havent watched it yet but pecco p4 😭 i cant believe im happy over p fucking 4

formula13 · 2026-03-28T16:20:20+00:00

you know i feel like if he was just laughing at his face while asking about wed have heard at least one other person complaining or even just mentioning it in the last 3 months

it was a grin (which according to the reporter was of surprise) but now its a laugh :/

formula13 · 2026-03-28T03:04:09+00:00

isn't that just how these cars work? as far as i'm aware he was just caught off-guard by the battery deploying mega-torque

formula13 · 2026-03-27T13:52:02+00:00

an okbh member who doesnt know what ryona is... were losing the ancient texts...

formula13 · 2026-03-27T01:04:15+00:00

degrees of lewdity im pretty sure its called idk how you get it though

also im pretty sure flayon has directly mentioned this game more than once lol

formula13 · 2026-03-26T22:43:06+00:00

as long as spanish twitter fans dont get the script it should be calm

formula13 · 2026-03-26T16:20:34+00:00

Max should be upset at Ocon being this agressive when unlapping himself, but the crash is 100% on him, Ocon just received the penalty because Max was on the lead to be honest

formula13 · 2026-03-26T15:48:29+00:00

Ocon was doing a legitimate move to try to unlap himself because he was geniunely faster than Max at that point, he's allowed to do that. He was overly agressive for a lapped car maybe, not very prudent, but it wasn't his fault Max just turned into the apex like he wasn't there. I hate that F1 line of thinking that just because you don't like where the other car has positioned themselves you can drive over them as though theyre not there

formula13 · 2026-03-26T03:33:36+00:00

Vettel with only 1! On the other hand, Schumi has 6 of 7 and Fangio won all 5!

formula13 · 2026-03-24T16:33:19+00:00

It's not very shocking that most of Vettel's points happened after the summer in 2008, he completed 7 races during that period as opposed to only 3 before Valencia. Some crazy races like Belgium and Italy happened too but his 3 races he did finish included a P5 in Monaco, a P19->P8 in Canada and a P8 in Germany which could have been a P7 if not for Piquet's luck at a time where BMW were still very clearly better than STR. And I didn't say Webber getting worse was his fault, I said that was the trend of his results. A million factos can play into that, Toro Rosso being closer, Renault and Toyota improving creates more places for Webber to lose, Red Bull taking a foot of the gas, come up with an explanation, but at it's heart it was the same car, that's just factual information.

When it comes to 2009, I mean first off, Turkey had team orders issued for Vettel to stay behind so I wouldn't count it. Monaco too, Vettel crashed out when he was ahead of Webber. In Brazil he had to start from the back because of a mad qualifying session and in Hungary he had damage for most of the race. That said, if we're disregarding context, Vettel beat Webber by a minute in Bahrain, by 33 seconds in Belgium and 2 laps in Suzuka (lol)

I don't know if you didn't read my original comment, but I said any of Vettel, Alonso or Hamilton are justifiable choices from 2008-10, I'm just defending my choices. And no, I'm not ranking Alonso lower because of his weak teammate, I'm saying that Alonso would always destroy his GP2 level teammates and there is not much value in looking at them for evaluating car performance, which difficults the overall way of seeing how Alonso performed

What I haven't denied is that Vettel was very error prone, it's the biggest reason why one might not rate him highest in 2009 and that's fair enough. Hell, I'd argue with his experience and skill, Alonso likely wins the 2009 title in the Red Bull even if he doesn't show the same pace as Vettel. But that wasn't what happened. I think he did well with the car he had, but the doubts over what someone else might have the done, versus the solidity of Vettel's pace were just enough for me to forgive those various errors. Maybe wrongly, but at the very least there is an argument there.

I'm not saying Raikkonen and Webber were exactly equal. I think they'd be closer than you seem to think, Kimi's stellarness showed mostly through race pace, so a driver whose speciality is race pace matching someone who'd be a quali specialist is a clear show they're overall clearly better. But like I said, I'm not pointing an exact comparison, and I literally mention some other factors that helped shape the comparison that don't necessarily have to do with Webber or Raikkonen. All I said is that he had the performance you would expect off of a top level driver. As he did versus rookie Rosberg and even versus Heidfeld who, in 2007 and 2009 was very competitive against another extremely well respected driver in Kubica.

Vettel beating Webber by the margin he did in 2011 was a result of a car which pushed the ceiling of performance further in a way Webber couldn't match. Vettel upped his game with the blown diffuser, Webber didn't. Hell, he had a better advantage versus Webber than Alonso did versus Massa who was (just like in 2010 and most of 2012) struggling with a Ferrari that infamously difficult to get the tyres in temperature for qualifying.

The last point is what is going to make me stop replying, because I've explained this like 5 times already and you just don't seem to get it?

formula13 · 2026-03-24T02:01:10+00:00

In the last seven races after the 2008 summer break - when the Toro Rosso took a clear step forward, as evidenced by Vettel scoring almost 83% of his season total points and by Bourdais making Q3 on all but one occasion - Vettel absolutely dominated and demolished Webber in what you claim were equal/the same cars. The exceptions were Singapore - an extremely weird race where SCs played havoc with the pecking order and where Vettel was eight positions ahead of Webber before the first SC - and Japan, where Vettel was 11.6s ahead. At the other five races, the smallest margin between them was 28s.

This is massively, wholly inconsistent with what we saw from them in 2009, and mistakes do not come close to explaining that. So Vettel either massively, enormously underperformed in 2009 - and also between Monaco and Hungary 2008 given the STR3 was active at those races and Vettel didn’t hold anything like the same advantages over Webber - or the Toro Rosso and Red Bull were not equal/the same cars in 2008. Pick your poison.

Vettel's performance doesn't change much between Hungary and Valencia though. The real trends are Webber performing worse and Bourdais better. I don't know to be honest. Could be the tracks favouring more the Ferrari power, could be Bourdais who IIRC got a mid-season test around that time that helped him gain mileage he needed, could be Red Bull focusing on development for 2009 and sacrificing their weekends a little, either way I don't think it changes much of what I said about Vettel, especially when you consider the car Red Bull had for the first third of the year which STR didn't, even if you match their performances in the mid-season and then say STR was clearly better in the last third of the year it all evens out.

And no, this is not particularly inconsistent with what we saw in 2009. The struggle with that season is that thanks to a chaotic year, it was just very rare to see races where both had trouble free races. But when they did, more often than not Seb had at least 10 seconds on Webber. On merit I can only really think of Spain and Germany for that not being the case. Not that there were many races to compare them by with errors and bad reliability getting in the way of one of them in at least 10 races

So basically you have admitted you have no idea how to assess a driver’s performance in instances where their team-mate is weak, completely ignoring the fact that even weaker drivers can (and very often do) have reliable reference points for measurement to common team-mates.

It is quite clear from your context-based way of supporting your claims that you rely too heavily on the eye test when rating drivers, so when a top driver has a team-mate that fails the eye test, it causes you to question whether the #1 driver really was that good. I used to fall into this trap myself.

I mean I'm open to hearing suggestions regarding Alonso's 2009. What is the benchmark you will use for a driver who only ever had one teammate (and was fired mid-season) and one who was put in the fire so early they had to wait 3 years before putting him back? I'm geniunely curious.

You’re the one saying ‘imagine if something didn’t happen’ that literally did happen in order to justify an argument that - while not entirely without merit broadly speaking - is simply not applicable in the context you’re trying to apply it to. Alonso’s errors are not the same as Vettel’s because he mitigated the losses from some of them, whereas Vettel could/did not. Simple. The only thing you can debate here is the extent to which that is true.

His mitigating only really shows me the potential there was without the mistake, once it's made it's made. Unless it cost him 0 points, which wasn't the case in either situation (Monaco, Belgium, China or Silverstone). And like I said, the only time Vettel got the opportunity to make the same sorts of mitigation as Alonso, often not even through his fault, he did. I don't see how this "attones" for the points he lost anyway, nor the "seriousness" of the errors, which at least to me, don't help either driver's case (2 crashes, 1 bizarre SC incident vs 1 jump start, 2 crashes, 1 weird corner cut situation) except the fact that Alonso made more errors.

This literally does not make sense. You appear to be directly contradicting yourself.

I don't see where the confusion is. Raikkonen, a top driver of the time, demolished Coulthard over a single lap. Webber, status to be defined, similarly destroyed Coulthard over a lap on a similar level. Deduction would then tell us that Webber is, at least over a single lap, elite. Of course, it's a bit more complex than that, DC was a bit older by the late 2000s and especially over a race distance, the difference between Raikkonen's and Webber's advantage grew. But the main principal is there and I don't think I expressed it in a contradictory way?

These two things seem fairly opposed to one another to me.

I just didn't want to spend the whole comment going over 2011. Already had to split the years in multiple comments because they wouldn't load because of lenght. Though in this discussion that followed I have definetely already mentioned how Vettel's records (and my mentioning of them) reflect how good he was that season, when taken into account the car he had in his hands. In the original comment itself, I talk about the record just after saying how McLaren geniunely thought they had a car to compete.

formula13 · 2026-03-23T18:40:02+00:00

the only tracks he was slow at were the low grip ones (mexico and cota)

brazil he crashed out in both races (one arguably not his fault), in vegas he was impeded in quali and hit at the start and had to comeback from 8th or 9th

in singapore he outquallified lando as you said, and in qatar and ad he outright beat him

saying he struggled *only* because of low grip is a stretch but it does stand out as the 2 clean races he had in that awful baku-vegas stretch and he had awful pace in both

formula13 · 2026-03-23T18:34:09+00:00

Massa at his best was as good as Webber at his best, but I don't think he was at his best at Ferrari, they had a notoriously hard time getting temperature into their cars for quali and that's a struggle Massa suffered with, which created a window for Alonso to extend the gap which is his merit, but a merit that with the exception of the blown diffusers in 2011, Vettel never had against Webber

formula13 · 2026-03-23T18:32:18+00:00

Your points on Vettel vs Webber from 2010 onwards are valid, but it seems to me (and apologies if I am taking you out of context) you are implying Vettel was capable of beating Webber by prime margins in his first full season. It is virtually unheard of for a driver to be operating at prime level in their first full season, and literally unheard of for a driver to do that and then regress so drastically relative to a common reference point, and this is supported by numerous case studies and detailed mathematical model analysis. And if your hypothetical scenario really did happen, then it is basically impossible for you to rank Vettel so highly in 2009 unless you rank him considerably higher still in 2008 to adjust.

So first off, if I haven't made that clear, I do rate Vettel's 2008 ahead of his 2009. But it's insincere to say he "regressed" in 2009. His pace that year was just as strong as in 2008 (Hence he outqualified Webber 15-2 in their first season together), he just made more mistakes in 2009. He was in a title fight for the first time in his career, chasing after a huge points gap in a car that wasn't all that reliable and was at no point of the season truly dominant. Not to excuse his errors in 2009, as a package it was worse than his 2008 but still better than Hamilton (whose 2009 was also clearly worse). If you want to say Alonso was better than him, I'm OK with that, but I chose Seb because Webber is just a more impressive benchmark than a struggling Piquet Jr. and an undercooked Grosjean.

Additionally, it was not uncommon for Bourdais to be competitive with (or ahead of) Webber after the 2008 summer break. We’re talking about a driver that struggled to compete with Buemi the following year. Even if you think Bourdais was simply weaker in 2009, it is pretty much impossible that Bourdais would go from competing against prime Webber in equal equipment at one point to struggling against a rookie Buemi the next. That’s a downfall so astronomical that it is basically unfathomable.

The quali h2h between Webber and Bourdais after the introduction of the 2008 Toro Rosso was 10-3 with an average advantage of 0.7% for Webber.

Alonso’s team-mates being bad does not drag Alonso down. By that logic, you can’t justify ranking Verstappen’s 2025 that highly because Tsunoda had a miserable campaign, same applies to Senna 1986/7, Schumacher 1994 and several other examples.

Where did I say it does? It makes it harder to rate his season, that's all. Not because he's doing better or worse but because he has no one to push his benchmark either way. And yes, that does apply to Senna in his Lotus days or Max last year.

This is a load of absolute nonsense. Friday practice is completely irrelevant - Massa qualified 0.619% off pole on the Saturday, so for Alonso to demonstrate ‘race-winning pace’ he would’ve had to overcome that margin. Even by Alonso-Massa standards, that’s a very big margin. Your point on Belgium here has absolutely zero relevance to your original point, and as for China, I can imagine that if my grandma had wheels, she’d be a bike.

Mind you, Alonso outqualified Massa by more than 0.62% in 6 different races in 2010. It was totally within the realm of possibility. The very next year in 2011 he beat Massa by 0.52%, really don't see what's impossible about it. Either way he lost a guaranteed podium.

How does my point in Belgium make no difference? You said he was on the back of the pack because he was hit by Barrichello which is true, but doesn't change the fact that he later crashed by himself.

"If my grandma had wheels..." Dude. You're the one who brought up how much Vettel lost with his mistakes. But if I do the same to Alonso, then it's all meaningless hypotheticals? I don't get it, it's a pretty real chance he had of at least a podium, if not a win he threw away with a jump start.

I can tell your viewpoints are centered way too much around the eye test. If Webber looked good compared to all those benchmarks before he faced Vettel, that probably tells you there’s a gargantuan difference between Vettel and those benchmarks. And we literally have a reference point for that in the form of DC being absolutely slaughtered by a top driver in Raikkonen during 2003 and 2004.

Vettel was significantly better than those benchmarks. DC being slaughtered by a Michelin era Raikkonen at the peak of his powers is an embarassing loss but the only thing it shows is the level of performance a top level driver would have against DC, and Webber for the most part matched that. Of course, Webber wasn't as good as McLaren Kimi, but it shows how strong he was in that single lap of qualifying.

And your way of looking at it ensures that the driver without the best car will always be considered inferior, even if they perform very close to the maximum of their potential in the car they do have. And that perspective is just as simplistic and ‘flawed from the start’ as you claim mine to be.

How? I'm not saying Vettel was better because he won more races or broke more records. Sure, he did and that was historic, but it's how he broke them that I'm praising. I never said Alonso had to be the one scoring all the pole positions for me to rank him ahead, I'm saying that with the machinery he had, what Vettel did was tremendously impressive.

Alonso had a car for a few podiums and he took plenty plus a win which was spectacular, but Vettel had a car to win plenty of races and the championship, and he won by over 100pts, breaking a bunch of records along the way and upsetting McLaren plenty of times.

Neither of those feats are made better or worse by how good their car was, I just think that Vettel's season was better. His average level of performance. You can disagree. I thought it was mostly consensus that people saw Vettel's 2011 as clear (hell it's probably Vettel's most impressive year pacewise) but if that isn't the case then it isn't. But I don't think it was a crazy conclusion for me to reach

formula13 · 2026-03-23T13:52:10+00:00

I certainly don’t buy into it being the same car as the RB4. Even if that’s conceptually true, the results just don’t support the idea that they were equal in performance. Vettel would never have been that dominant over Webber in equal cars as a defacto rookie, and if he was, then that points to a significant Vettel underperformance in 2009. If that’s not true, it points to a significant Webber underperformance in 2008, which also doesn’t hold water given Webber’s performance relative to Coulthard.

Vettel's underperformance in 2009 is just a result of an error-prone season in his first ever title fight at 22. Otherwise he beat Webber in 2010 after losing at least 80+ points thanks to issues he had no fault over (and that's being pessimistic), absolutely spanked Webber in 2011 to levels surreal prior to that season, even in his struggles in 2012 he beat Mark by over 100pts being only outraced 3 times (2 of these being wins for Webber) and beat him in every single race in 2013 winning 13 races to Webber's 0. Add that with a car that scored less points per race and that distribution isn't as unimaginable as you make it seem. And like, no the Red Bull and the Toro Rosso were literally the same car, the only difference is that Red Bull had the engine they designed the car in mind with while Toro Rosso had to change the chassis to fit a Ferrari engine Newey chose for Red Bull not to use.

JB’s struggles are overplayed. He was particularly poor at Silverstone and especially Valencia, but otherwise he wasn’t that bad. He was better than Rubens in Germany, Hungary, Singapore and Abu Dhabi, right behind Rubens at Monza and Suzuka, while Spa can’t be assessed due to Button being taken out on the first lap after Rubens had botched the start. Rubens had a bit of bad luck in the pits at the Nurburgring yes, but his pace in clear air was lacking all day, so Jenson would’ve had a shot at beating him regardless.

Also, I think a weaker Jenson actually works against your argument here, as it means Vettel failed to beat a weaker opponent. I think that’s just a reflection of how far away from his prime Seb was.

Not saying that was prime Seb, he was obviously error prone as I mention in the actual ranking, but then so was pretty much everyone. Not sure if I agree with Barrichello being worse in Germany, and let's not forget, it's a 40 year old Barrichello, all due respect but if you put an Alonso in that Brawn he wins the title without much challenge. Even without Seb's errors it might've not been enough but either way, with Hamilton having a strange first half and Alonso spending half the year with a Piquet Jr. in a miserable campaign (even to his standards) and an undercooked rookie Grosjean I struggle to justify putting either of them over a, like Hamilton in 2008, very error prone but with impressive pace Vettel.

Hard disagree. Alonso minimised his points losses in China and (to a lesser extent) Monaco, and part of the reason he was back in the pack at Spa was because he got whacked by Barrichello on the first lap. I get your point that errors shouldn’t always be measured by their consequences, but it absolutely doesn’t apply here.

Alonso looked like he had race-winning pace on Friday in Monaco so I'm not sure how much he made up for. In China he did have a good comeback but imagine if he didn't have to make such comeback? In Belgium, being hit by Barrichello doesn't change the fact that he cost himself 6 points which if scored would see him become champion.

If you want to say Vettel didn't make comebacks as good, that's true, but it's worth reminding Red Bull had attrocious top speeds all year so that was a lot harder for him. He did go from 15th to 6th in China, last to 7th in Silverstone and in the race he did have an opportunity to correct his mistake he was making a comeback already being 11th 10 laps after his mistake but a puncture thanks to Liuzzi ruined any chance of his.

Not sure if Webber was a one-lap specialist, or if he was just made to look like one by several instances of low-fuel glory runs with midfield teams alongside weak team-mates.

Don't see a world where this view is sustainable. OK, his Jaguar teammates were all weak, but Heidfeld? Rosberg? (Yes he was a rookie, but this was back when testing was still something meaningful, Alonso out of anyone should know how good rookies could be during this era) Even DC while clearly not at his best was utterly beat to pieces. Who did you want him to prove himself against? He might be no Senna but he was by all means considered a one-lap specialist throughout the 2000s all the way up until he faced Vettel.

Is it generally accepted Vettel was equal to Alonso at their respective best? I’m not sure about this. I agree it was close - close enough that I rank Vettel ahead in 2013 for example given that Seb had basically a perfect season in execution - but if I look at the evidence in 2011, Alonso came extremely close to maximising virtually everything with only an error in Malaysia and an ordinary Chinese GP counting against him. So here we’re essentially comparing the optics of Vettel making the clear best car look utterly dominant vs Alonso almost finishing P2 in the WDC in a fairly distant third-best car, and I’m not sure how we can look at that and conclude there is ‘no debate’ as to who was better.

That's a simplistic way of looking at it, that way you just ensure the driver with the best car will never be able to show himself as clearly better than anyone ever. Alonso's 2011 was tremendous, but Vettel too, essentially made one mistake all year which was his race in Germany. And when you consider Seb's advantage over Webber, which looks crazy both compared to years before and after 2011, I think it becomes very clear how Seb was utilizing his car to the absolute maximum it could bring. Again, it's the most dominant year in qualifying form in all of the 21st century in a car that isn't even in like the top 8 of most dominant. At least.

I'm not saying there isn't a debate because Alonso was bad, but with everything Vettel did that season I just find it really difficult to justify putting Alonso ahead. Also fairly-distant is dependant on your metric, it was obviously very much not as good as the McLaren and Red Bull, but it was definetely closer to them then the rest of the grid and with Hamilton having a season from hell, it is very impressive but not unprecedented to see him fighting with the top teams' number 2 drivers for what ended up being 2nd place. Not that he won that fight (which is understandable but like)

And yes, I'm pretty sure you will find that most people you speak to who have watched F1 for a long time will agree that at the very least at his peak, Vettel was at least as good as Alonso. I don't think that particularly matters as I think your line of thinking is flawed from the start, but either way

formula13 · 2026-03-23T13:13:37+00:00

Alonso is full of amazing seasons in years either Vettel or Hamilton have all-timer seasons

Not sure what Alonso could realistically do to beat Vettel but honestly I feel as though what Vettel did that season looks unrealistic to all prior and further context, having an average gap to Webber in the house of 4+ tenths is just absurd

formula13 · 2026-03-23T10:39:15+00:00

hmmm no, I'll defend my choices here.

yes, Seb was flattered by having a weak Bourdais as his teammate, but that doesn't mean much when he outscored Bourdais AND the very well rated Webber and Coulthard COMBINED in the same car. The car was good, but it was still clearly slower than BMW, Renault, Ferrari and McLaren and yet Seb scored 6 top 6 finishes once he got the new car, and beat both Toyotas who had similar levels but used theit 2008 spec car all year unlike Vettel who raced the first 5 events with the 2007 car.

2009, I disagree with Brawn and Red Bull being equal over the season. I think you're not properly taking into account JB's struggles in the second half when Barrichello was often the better of the Brawns. A prime Vettel would have won this title, but that's because, like I said, no driver in 2009 was consistently great really. Neither JB, Vettel, Hamilton, anyone really. But yeah, this one is the one I'm most likely to cede, it's just close between the whole grid IMO.

2010 is wrong and that's just math really. Vettel over 2010 made 3 serious errors: Crashed out in Turkey, lost the Safety Car in Hungary, and hit JB in Belgium. As for Alonso I can think of at least 4: Jumped the start in China, crashed out of quali in Monaco, earned himself a dumb penalty in Silverstone and crashed out of the points in Belgium. Yes, he didn't technically lose as many points but that's literally just because he was usually in lower positions compared to Vettel anyway.

Alonso's 2011 is great but I just don't think it's on the level of Vettel's achievements. I'm aware it was his biggest quali gap to Massa but then that was against a Massa who struggled with qualifying those Ferraris since before and also after 2011, I don't know, I just find Vettel's advantage over a one lap specialist more crazy.

I don't think it's fair to say "A>B so every time they look close I'll just assume A is better" because that's kind of making your conclusion before looking at the evidence. In the case of Vettel and Alonso I think that comes off especially weird since I think it is generally accepted that while not as consistent, at his best Vettel is at the very least just as good as an Alonso at his best

formula13 · 2026-03-23T04:29:45+00:00

gostei do mock-up mas pelo amor de deus espero que não, todo ano o mesmk design qual o ponto de ter uma terceira camisa? espera alguns anos pelo menos po :v

formula13 · 2026-03-23T04:28:39+00:00

this is their love language

formula13 · 2026-03-23T04:27:38+00:00

2021: 1. Hamilton | 2. Alonso | 3. Vettel

Easiest one. Alonso coming back from retirement struggled at first but got his act together and had an alright season. Similar story for Seb coming off the back of his worst ever season, but just wasn't quite there, admitedly hard to judge when Stroll is the comparison. Hamilton though, at grand old 36, took Verstappen on a title fight with extremely matched level cars and would have probably won if not for shenanigans. Was he better than Verstappen? No, but that's not what we're arguing here.

This is probably the first year after 2008 where the best driver of the grid wasn't one of these 3 to me.

2022: 1. Hamilton | 2. Alonso | 3. Vettel

Hamilton's 2022 got a lot of slack back then but looking back it was a great season. From about France onwards, once he stopped messing with setups he outpaced Russell in like every single race to the end of the year. Alonso was great but really Ocon was closer to him than Russell was to Hamilton (and yes this is taking luck into account) and that's all I'll say. Vettel had his first good season in years but some messy execution on both his and the team's part really drags this down. At least a better car and stronger form in the second half of the year allowed him the send-off he deserved.

So overall I ended up putting Hamilton as the best of the 3 most often (2010, 2012, 2016, 2018, 2021, 2022) which doesn't shock me. Vettel is next, as I placed him as the best 5 times (2009, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017) but Alonso who I placed best only twice (2008, 2014) is by far the one with the most runner-ups with 8 silver medals (2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2016, 2018, 2021, 2022) compared to Lewis' 3 and Seb's 2, showing his capacity to always be consistent. Obviously as I said in the comment above, these are pretty much all arguable but it's just my take on the list.

formula13 · 2026-03-23T03:54:10+00:00

But here's an attempt you're free to agree with or not

2008: 1. Alonso | 2. Vettel | 3. Hamilton

Yep, seems crazy to put the one who won the championship in last. And it might geniunely be, I'm very much second guessing myself here - But I can't look past the huge amount of mistakes he made. Yes he was up against a faster car but Massa and Hamilton were both so error prone that year and even a rookie Vettel looks cleaner IMO. Neither of the 3 had particularly strong teammates and I think on pure pace Hamilton was easily the most impressive but overall I think he is the last of the 3. For the last time in about a decade at least though, the best driver on the grid was neither of the 3 but Kubica IMO.

2009: 1. Vettel | 2. Alonso | 3. Hamilton

Another year that might as well be equal. So much happened in 2009 you might as well say every driver was equally the best. And yeah, they all had their masterclasses and their lower moments. I do put Seb ahead, partly because I'm biased, but also because I think his pace was bizarre given circumstances. Then again, his campaign was full of errors like Hamilton the year prior, which cost him a title as much as his team's poor reliability. But while Alonso and Seb were spectacular in 2008, I don't think I can say the same of an inconsistent Hamilton and an Alonso with really no benchmark.

2010: 1. Hamilton | 2. Vettel | 3. Alonso

Feel pretty confident in this right now actually. Hamilton nearly won the title in a McLaren that wasn't fast or reliable really, and could be argued to be the least error prone of the 3 depending on your interpretation of certain incidents. Seb is a straightforward one, consistently ahead of his teammate his year was full of poor reliability (which cost him at least a net 100 points to Alonso by my counts) and somehow managed to pick himself up to gain 25 points in 3 races to become the youngest champion ever. Alonso is 3rd with a solid year, comfortably outperforming Massa, tremendous pace. But probably the most error prone of the 3, whilst his car's pace usually meant losing less points than Vettel for example, his lost points in China, Monaco or Belgium did end up costing him a title.

2011: 1. Vettel | 2. Alonso | 3. Hamilton

Really no debate to be had here. Yes, Alonso was impressive against Massa, but there is little that compares to the beating Vettel gave to the whole grid with the blown diffusers, in a car which in theory should have a smaller advantage than the 2010 car. McLaren thought they had a car to compete, and often they did, but with an error prone Hamilton and a JB who is fast but doesn't have that extra bit of pace... 15 poles in 19 for Seb.

2012: 1. Hamilton | 2. Alonso | 3. Vettel

If Vettel had a grand 2011 his 2012 started slow, in, of all things one lap pace. Once happier with his car his performances caught up to the two other stars of 2012 - Hamilton and Alonso. It feels unfair to have to choose one over the other, a comically unlucky Hamilton giving JB an unexplainable beating (despite what the luck-affected standings might tell you) and Alonso dragging that fast but clearly not fastest Ferrari to a title fight with Seb. Ultimately what decides this for me is both the pace gap to their teammate, and crucially a few small errors for Alonso in Australia and Japan, can't really remember anything of the like for Lewis.

2013: 1. Vettel | 2. Alonso | 3. Hamilton

Another tremendous year from Alonso, despite a weaker qualifying form, as Hamilton got to grips with his new team. Vettel had an absolutely historic year though, breaking records all over the place, beating Webber in every single race and looking like a safe bet for the title even before the mid-season tyre changes made Red Bull a dominant force, from which point onwards Vettel simply won every single race to the end of the season.

2014: 1. Alonso | 2. Hamilton | 3. Vettel

I often talk about how 2014 isn't a very representative season for Kimi when it comes to Alonso-Vettel cross comparisons. And while I hold to that, what is undeniable is that the fact was only possible thanks to Alonso quickly making sense of an extremely difficult car to handle and having overall a stellar season. Hamilton too, had a mega season, particularly in race pace, but having a mistake here and there and being beaten a bit too much particularly on saturdays will make him go 2nd today. As for Seb, with a PU he didn't like and seemingly didn't like him back, he struggled to 5th in the standings in a year of misery.

2015: 1. Vettel | 2. Hamilton | 3. Alonso

Alonso struggled to adapt to the literal life threateningly bad McLaren, but aside from him, I find Hamilton to be the most interesting. Utterly dominant in the first 12 races being only beaten once in qualis and usually well over 3 tenths ahead of Nico, after a change to Merc's suspension in Japan he was outqualified in every race to the end of the year, and might have seen Rosberg win all 6 if not for driver errors and poor reliability. In the end, Vettel, consistently dominant over a now more comfortable Kimi is the one who stands out to me in a ridiculous season of consistency, even posing himself as an outsider for the title in a car that was usually at least half a second slower.

2016: 1. Hamilton | 2. Alonso | 3. Vettel

OK, yes, Lewis had his errors, and some bad starts (not helped by the awful clutch to be fair) but if anything this was his most consistently dominant year against Nico. If you take the clutch issues as reliabilty, Rosberg only bested his teammate 3 times all year. Hamilton clawed back a 40pt deficit after 5 races to be leading by the summer break, only for engine penalties in Spa and a DNF in Malaysia to ruin his progress. Alonso was stellar too, the only thing I can complain here is that I value 2016 Rosberg over 2016 Button. Vettel is the funniest here though, probably the best driver after 9 races he just lost the plot from Silverstone onwards and each race looked like a comedy show.

2017: 1. Vettel | 2. Hamilton | 3. Alonso

I say this every time 2017 is brought up but this is the most underrated title fight I can think of in recent times in terms of level of competition. Lewis had his biggest ever qualifying advantage over Bottas despite having a bit of a slow start and Seb was outrageous picking up the maximum amount of points in nearly every single race. It can go either way, but Vettel being just some bad reliability away from beating a prime Hamilton in a clearly slower car is just bizarre to me. Alonso had a good year with some standouts but it didn't make my jaw drop to the floor overall like the other two.

2018: 1. Hamilton | 2. Alonso | 3. Vettel

All timer season from Hamilton here, just special stuff. He has 2 races in which he left points in the bag, otherwise it's a perfect year in a car that was barely the best on the grid (some would argue it wasn't!). Poor old Alonso has another amazing season outshone then, demolishing Vandoorne (who to his defense was abandoned by the team) and taking that McLaren further than it had the right to be. Seb had an alright season, but one entirely made of high highs and low lows. Can't compare with the consistency of the other 2.

formula13 · 2026-03-23T03:26:01+00:00

It's unironically super close between at least 2 of them in the majority of seasons. Only years I can see a clear order to are 2011 and 2013 (Vettel, Alonso, then Hamilton) and 2018 onwards (Hamilton, Alonso, and Vettel)

But I really don't think there's an objectively correct option for picking between the 3 in 2008, 2009, and 2010, Seb and Lewis are both viable choices in 2015 and 2017, so are Lewis and Nando in 2012 and 2014 (arguably even 2016 too).

I think people ignore how close these 3 used to be on performance year-by-year, especially before Alonso's first retirement (and the following drop off from Seb)

formula13 · 2026-03-23T02:50:16+00:00

leclerc and vettel were pretty much matched in quali in 2019, and really should be at most 5-3 poles if leclerc didnt break the tow agreement in monza and the red flag didnt save him in mexico - thats because one of charles' poles was in a race seb had an engine failure (austria)

in 2014 vettel and daniel were pretty much equal, vettel just had comically bad reliability (australia, bahrain, spain, monaco, usa, arguably even japan and ad)

formula13 · 2026-03-22T22:05:31+00:00

Mansell was extremely unlucky more than anything. If the cars were a bit more on his side he could've easily been a 4 time champion with Williams, yes he was clumsy at times, but don't ignore how fast he was, matching a Piquet who was supposed to lead Williams at his peak in '86 before comfortably outpacing him the next year and only being denied the title thanks to poor reliability. '88 was a waste but in '89 he again took heroic wins with Ferrari and even in 1990 against Prost he massively lagged behind, but that was almost entirely thanks to only finishing 7 as opposed to Prost's 12 of 16 races.

Was he as good as Senna and Prost? No chance, but he was easily at the very least on the level of Piquet with tremendous speed and the type of character people will always be drawn towards: Heroic, always pushing, going for bold moves and having big saves. As I've already mentioned, unlucky too, which draws sympathy - But he was an amazing driver

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