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Grabthaw the Hammerslayer

Vettel And Will Power

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Watching both IRL and F1 this year. I'm struck by the similarity between Will Power and Sebastian Vettel (in my mind).... Not from a driving style or looks point of view.

No, more that with both I recognise and admire their skill and speed. Really, I do.... BUT....

I find it hard to get excited by them. I've tried.

With F1 I've found myself ignoring Vettel roaring off in front and concentrated on what's been going on behind. Similarly with Will Power.

Yet, I watch Dario Franchitti, Lewis Hamilton, Scott Dixon, Fernando Alonso and there is something about them that is vaguely exciting, interesting. Both on the track and when they are being interviewed.

With Power and Vettel they are....

well,

boring :(yawn.gif

Is it just me?

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Any race where any driver runs out front and you force yourself to try to be excited because their steering wheel angle is slightly different from the other guy is a **** race. Don't care who is in the lead. If there's no battle, it's damn poor and they're all boring when they're winning.

Qualifying, however, is when I'm content to watch drivers and their fast cars run all alone. I can't speak for Vettel as I've never seen him in qualifying, but I know I've seen Power kick out the a##-end of a Panoz DP01 right up on the wall pushing for pole at his home-ish race in Surfers' Paradise. And that was exciting. Pushing for pole is exciting. Pushing for position in a race is exciting. Making fuel mileage at the front of the field with a ten-second lead isn't exciting, no matter who is doing it, or what they can theoretically do. Only an idiot pushes when they're dominating, which is why they seem boring-er than they are. I think. I'm tired and to be honest I'm disenchanted with both F1 and IndyCar. More of a NASCAR, ALMS, and touring cars guy if anything. More ice hockey than those.

Power sure as hell ain't boring off-the-track, at least.

Will_Power_Middle_Fingers.jpg

Absolutely love the guy. Wish Team Penske were as good of a team as people pretend they are. Learn to do a pit stop boys...

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I agree with Eric on most points....except the Ice Hockey, NASCAR and most of the rest... :P

A guy out the front, be it FFord or FOne...is...boring. Commentators can't say much, because for all intents and purposes, the guy is doing nothing but driving pretty well.

Excitement will always come from the battles....who wasn't on the edge of their seats when Massa had the WDC for 25 seconds in Brazil, watching Hamilton snatch fifth place? Who didn't go, holy Sh#t!!, when Webber launched into a flip at Valencia....or go...MICHAEL!!! You dirty a##hole!!...when he pushed Rubens to the wall....action is what gets us interested in a sport...and it is but fair to say that NASCAR gives that to the fans....cars wrecking, drivers having punch ups etc...so too to a degree with touring cars....however, open wheelers can not afford such close, banging doors, driving, even if Hamilton gives that a shot every now and then. So that aspect of the excitement is lost to a large degree.

FOne tries to add some excitement by posting live timing on their website. But to watch timing screens is f-ing boring....it doesn't make you anymore of an "expert"...maybe a geek, but not an expert.

IRL on the other hand is at a turning point, in that they have new cars next year...they, once again, have a championship coming down to the last race....they have a variety of drivers, all with pluses and minuses against them....and whilst it looks a poor cousin to FOne, it really isn't...it's just a different way to skin a cat, and having talked to Scott Dixon's Dad a few years back, he said that Scott was quite happy not having had an FOne drive...why? Because he gets to just travel around the USA, and most times, is only away from home for three days...none of this living out of suitcase for weeks on end with the "fly-aways" etc.

I for one am looking forward to next season in IRL, with new engines, new chassis', new body work....and equally looking forward to FOne with new chassis and new engines in 2013. But that's because I like the engineering side just as much as the racing side...but you'll never catch me looking at the timing screens...

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Personally. I don't like Vettel and that's putting it mildly. But I begrudgingly respect his outstanding abilities on track.

It's probably the last few races he hasn't really been shown to be racing as the focus has been on other battles on track. He certainly can cause a few raised eyebrows and swearing-at-the-TV moments. I don't think he's boring per se. I think he's a twat. But that's my tuppence.

Power had his fair share of excitement in a dull series known as A1. He's not bad, but not overly good either.

As for their personal lives, I'm not interested. I don't watch F1 to know about what colour PJ's Vettel's mum buys for him or where Jenson likes to go fishing. I watch it because I love the sport.

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The only interesting German driver to come along in recent memory was Bellof. All the others have been good and precise and about as exciting to watch as a metronome. German drivers tend to be like German cars....very fast, very good, mechanically-precise but rather boring. I'm glad the broadcasters don't focus on Vettel during a race....I'd fall asleep.

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All the others have been good and precise and about as exciting to watch as a metronome. German drivers tend to be like German cars....very fast, very good, mechanically-precise but rather boring.

You can't be talking about Ralf Schumacher there...

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The only interesting German driver to come along in recent memory was Bellof. All the others have been good and precise and about as exciting to watch as a metronome. German drivers tend to be like German cars....very fast, very good, mechanically-precise but rather boring. I'm glad the broadcasters don't focus on Vettel during a race....I'd fall asleep.

unless you really try to understand how Vettel drives. If you think Vettel is all easy romping away at the front one is surely mistaken. Have a look at how he drives and it will glue you to the screen. The amount of precision driving the young man does is phenominal, hitting the same spot on a piece of tarmac lap after lap and carving out the tiniest of margin sector by sector. How he pushes himself.

We should appreciate what we're seeing from Seb, and demand more... He is after all the young genius, master of the F1 universe...

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unless you really try to understand how Vettel drives. If you think Vettel is all easy romping away at the front one is surely mistaken. Have a look at how he drives and it will glue you to the screen. The amount of precision driving the young man does is phenominal, hitting the same spot on a piece of tarmac lap after lap and carving out the tiniest of margin sector by sector. How he pushes himself.

We should appreciate what we're seeing from Seb, and demand more... He is after all the young genius, master of the F1 universe...

this statement makes you 'a bit gay'.

c'mon, you copied this out of the book about Kimi : " Speed and alcohol " , or was it " Magical liver " :eusa_think:

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You can't be talking about Ralf Schumacher there...

:clap3:

unless you really try to understand how Vettel drives. If you think Vettel is all easy romping away at the front one is surely mistaken. Have a look at how he drives and it will glue you to the screen. The amount of precision driving the young man does is phenominal, hitting the same spot on a piece of tarmac lap after lap and carving out the tiniest of margin sector by sector. How he pushes himself.

We should appreciate what we're seeing from Seb, and demand more... He is after all the young genius, master of the F1 universe...

I have looked. He's boring.

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I seem to recall a now older aussie Racer ( Jack Brabham) saying that you "WIN AT THE SLOWEST SPEED" which I guess is why it is so boring watching a guy like vettel when he has run away from the pack

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I seem to recall a now older aussie Racer ( Jack Brabham) saying that you "WIN AT THE SLOWEST SPEED" which I guess is why it is so boring watching a guy like vettel when he has run away from the pack

Not quite. The quote referred to only going as fast as you need to in order to win...ie: keep yourself ahead without risking yourself or your car. A sensible approach. Vettel has pulled away from the pack whilst in the lead multiple times (as you've said), proving he doesn't follow this approach, so that's not the reason for his boring driving style. You'd think by pulling away from the pack he'd give us at least one exciting moment.

Vettel is good like a BMW is good. He's mechanically precise and built on solid German engineering. But he's also boring. Like a BMW.

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Vettel is good like a BMW is good. He's mechanically precise and built on solid German engineering. But he's also boring. Like a BMW.

Yes, well sort of. Unlike a BMW, I think he's actually quite bland.

Schui in his day was similarly way out in front, but even if you didn't like him there was something about both him and his driving style that made him more interesting, controversial, cheeky, rule-breaking, personality.....

Vettel doesn't have this, he's just zzzzzzzz uh, sorry drifted off there for a minute... :)

Hamilton is more interesting in a schui-esque vein, but instead of making you go "hmmm???!!" this season, he has just made you go "Doh!" <slaps head> instead!

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If 'bland' or 'boring' are the worst things we can find to sling at our new WDC, then he's doing pretty damn well compared to previous champions.

He hasn't cheated, he's got a better car than the rest of the field, but he's still trashed his team mate. There's been no favourable stewarding decisions for us to complain about. To be fair to him, it's not actually Vettel himself that's boring either. It's just the races that happen when he qualifies in pole and then leads for 70 laps (which after all, is his job). It's F1 that is boring (when he's winning so easily) not Vettel himself. So all in all, some might say we ought to be mature adults about it and congratulate the man graciously for such a dominant performance and a well deserved 2nd WDC. As well as respectfully applauding Newey for an outstanding level of design nous.

But that would be boring so...

On the other hand, have you noticed his nostrils are slightly uneven? I bet he would have been a Hitler Youth if he'd been born in 1930. And I hate the way he changes his helmet every other race. Plus his dad doesn't even try to speak English. What does he think this is? Some kind of 'international' world?

*hurrumph*

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Yes, well sort of. Unlike a BMW, I think he's actually quite bland.

Oh dear. Only old men think a BMW is exciting. That's because compared to the coffin they'll be driving in a few years, the Beemer looks positively racy.

I never liked German cars. I never liked a German driver. I think I'm racist.

Stefan Bellof. Google/Youtube him. German drivers begin and end with him.

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I can see why people think he's boring on track, mostly, but that's sort of his and Red Bull's job (i.e. to make their own life as easy as possible). It would be odd if he had a driving style which made a very good car (like the Red Bull obviously is) slide around in spectacular fashion, and in any case, that ain't quick. It would also be odd if he drove at a reduced pace so that he had a rival following him closely, just to make it exciting for us (and I somehow doubt any driver has ever done that when they know they could much more easily pull away). I also don't think he has pulled away in races as much as people remember, didn't he only lead from start to finish at one race this year? And a few of his winning margins were only a few seconds, so he doesn't always bugger off completely. The quote referred to in this thread is about not taking too many risks, and is really an indication of a different era, one with greater danger and much less mechanical reliability. It's still relevant and an approach worth applying sometimes, but not as much as it was then, when it was probably more of a rule for drivers.

All of this is a roundabout way of saying, yes the criticism might be subjectively true for some, but it is objectively quite an unfair one as any driver in his position would surely be "boring". Another angle of this which strikes me is: listen to Vettel's interviews compared to Button, Hamilton or Alonso, maybe it's just me but they actually seem more interesting and his intelligence and sense of humour show through well.

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Stefan Bellof. Google/Youtube him. German drivers begin and end with him.

He was German? I always had him as Belgian. But I was also under the impression Michael Schumacher was American before I started watching F1 and he was the only driver I knew on the basis that his name sounded American and every NASCAR driver was American and all the good Indy drivers were American. In fact, I think I just assumed all the F1 races were in the U.S. since all the NASCAR and CART/Indy races were, and I was told they raced at Indy and Michigan but just ran around the other way so I figured it was just a really weird series. But an American one.

Oh well. At least there's talk of a Mexican Grand Prix soon. It would be good for Felipe Massa to have a home race.

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Oh dear. Only old men think a BMW is exciting. That's because compared to the coffin they'll be driving in a few years, the Beemer looks positively racy.

Hey! ph34r.gif:P

I never said it was exciting, I said it was not bland. Big difference :P:)

Having said that a BMW is more exciting than what I drive (which is not saying much!!!)

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He was German? I always had him as Belgian. But I was also under the impression Michael Schumacher was American before I started watching F1 and he was the only driver I knew on the basis that his name sounded American and every NASCAR driver was American and all the good Indy drivers were American. In fact, I think I just assumed all the F1 races were in the U.S. since all the NASCAR and CART/Indy races were, and I was told they raced at Indy and Michigan but just ran around the other way so I figured it was just a really weird series. But an American one.

Oh well. At least there's talk of a Mexican Grand Prix soon. It would be good for Felipe Massa to have a home race.

:lol:

Hey! ph34r.gif:P

I never said it was exciting, I said it was not bland. Big difference :P:)

Having said that a BMW is more exciting than what I drive (which is not saying much!!!)

I doubt it. Driving cattle is more exciting than driving a BMW.

I am offended. I like my BMW.

Oh dear. Bestpricecaskets.com

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If Vettel's season was made into and RPG, this would be a perfect review, in perfect english, made by your perfect average player:

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