Quote Originally Posted by zako85 View Post
No way in 2012. Let's look at the facts.

1. Vettel won only five out of twenty races in the whole 2012 season, and both Red Bulls won seven out of twenty. Does this strike you as a truly dominant car, specially through the whole season?

2. The first seven races were won by seven different drivers. Moreover, Vettel hasn't won his second race of season until the race 14 of season. By then Alonso had racked up three wins. Vettel didn't get his third win until the fifteenth round.

3. The last two races were won by McLarens in a fairly dominant fashion. People were starting to argue that McLaren was the fastest car at the end of year.

4. McLarens won seven races in the season, the same number as Red Bulls.


These points make it pretty obvious that Red Bull was not the most dominant car of the season for sure. We can allow the possibility that Red Bull had gotten better than Ferrari towards the end of season only, as Vettel's Red Bull hasn't caught up with Alonso's Ferrari until the last one quart of the season.
This post is a classic case of having a prejudiced opinion, then skewing what happened to suit that view.

The rules, particularly regarding the use of tyres in 12 and 13, were primarily designed to knobble the RB. The way the tech regs have evolved over the last 10-20 years, has often meant the greatest determining factor on performance has been aero. Which has been the strength of the RB throughout 10-13. The rules are so tight, that it's hard to overcome a deficiency of performance, particularly a black art like aero. Even over a few years.

It worked in the first half of 12. But once RB overcame this obstacle strategically, Vettel/RB won four on the trot. The season was too long for Ferrari, and was too much for Alonso to overcome his disadvantages.

In 13, the rules went even further, where Pirelli were asked to produce tyres that actually ****** up. But once RB successfully sooked to get the rules their own way, by producing harder tyres and not allowing the rotation of them (Which MB were doing to good effect), status quo resumed. The fundamental advantage RB had in aero came to effect and Vettel won 9 on the trot. The cars from 10-13 were in effect the same. RB always had that advantage, even if the degree varied slightly.

I don't understand how anyone can fail to see this.