Quote Originally Posted by zako85 View Post
There are several examples of very fine drivers having one bad season.

Senna in 1992: Highly inconsistent. While driving arguably the second best car on the grid and with three victories, he finished WDC only in 4th spot, allowing Schumacher with just one win to clinch 3rd and Patrese also with one win to clinch 2nd, and finishing only one point ahead of his teammate, Berger.

Hamilton in 2011: Got embarrassed by Button, who managed to finish second in WDC.

I think the main problem Vettel had in 2014 is that he lost the fancy aero toolkit he was used to race with since 2009. Ricciardo came in with a Toro Rosso background, whose car probably was not so reliant on the aero diffuser effects the previous year. Confused and with car having incredibly bad reliability since the very testing part of the season and with significantly less hunger than Ricciardo, Vettel had probably subconsciously written the season off specially with his Ferrari plans already in place.
Both Hamilton and Button scored 3 wins in the 2011 season. Did Vettel score any last year? Yeah it was a bit of an off season for Hammy but it was one that was also blight with issues in the car and some silly errors towards the end of the season, yet he still won the 3 GP that year even though it was far from a top season for him. It was still nowhere near the humiliation Seb suffered at the hands of Danny. Besides, Danny was a relative new kid on the block compared to Button. Hamilton was able to prove that season a one off by beating Button again the next season. Seb, unfortunately, ran when the going got tough to a team with a driver no longer at his peak which, in all probability, is making him look better than he is in reality.

Losing the fancy aero toolkit is not an excuse. He's a 4 time WDC and making excuses for him like that is just desperation from people that don't want to admit they overhyped the guy to begin. There's no doubting he's a great driver but he has yet to show he's an all-time great. If he was an all-time great last year wouldn’t have been such an embarrassment for him.