They think it’s all over….
….. It sure will be soon! The championship that is! Vettell’s dominance this year has been mind-blowing and he looks set to wrap up the remaining points he needs at the Suzuka race track in Japan at the weekend. He’s so far ahead that many of the best F1 betting site have stopped taking bets as to whether he will lift the crown.
It’s actually been quite eerie as to how good the young German has been. Is it the car? Well, that certainly plays its role. There’s no way he is single handily as good as the likes of Hamilton, Button, Alonso and Webber. But then look at Webber. He has the same car, same people around him and he currently lies fourth with almost half as many points as Vettel. There’s no doubt that Vettel is special, but how special we don’t know.
As a totally hypothetical situation it would be really interesting to see how he faired at a lesser team such as Mercedes or Renault, a little like Valentino Rossi in MotoGP. He’d probably struggle to emulate what he has achieved so far, but he certainly would still be there or thereabouts. Who knows, in a few years time when he gets sick of winning back to back championships then maybe he will jump ship.
The rest of the field have some serious work to do over the off season. There are still 6 races to go and they will be fighting hard for the constructors championship points. Although, again Red Bull will take some catching as they lead by 138 points already.
The race for second place is also still very much alive and with 3 out of the 4 in the hunt former world champions, there will be a lot of pride at stake. I can imagine a lot of teams using the time between now and the end of the season to really test new parts for next year and look to be finishing off their cars for the 2012 season where they no doubt will be desperate to close the gap to that of the Red Bulls.
The exciting thing, for Vettel anyway, is that he is only 24 years old and has his best years ahead of him. He could go down as one of the greats in the sport….if not the greatest!
