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One year Massa had his championship taken away in the space of a lap / corner / home straight in Brazil and for want of his Singapore win thrown away for the sake of an un-detached fuel hose in one of the most the most bonkers comical scenes in F1 history.

This year we have had Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen conspire to sabotage their own chance of championship glory but sandwiching Max Verstappen at the very same track in impeccable screw-up fashion and then watch the Ferrari engine fail at the most crucial point of the season after seemingly bulletproof reliability all year, not to mention Vettel succeeding to crash in the one race inbetween despite finishing in the points.

Which has been the bigger year of calamity? Is Kimi Raikkonen something to do with it? Does Ferrari have a curse at Singapore? Why do Ferrari always get gremlins when they least need them?

The bit about Ferrari getting gremlins when they least need them is interesting because even in the largely bulletproof 2012 there was a costly failure.

Monza was one of the few tracks the Ferrari could legitimately contend for pole and the win on outright pace and they suffered a rear anti roll bar failure in Q and Alonso had to start 10th.

Definitely 08. With that car, an inexperienced off form Hamilton and some bizarre stewarding they really should have won that championship.

This year was only ever 50/50 at best.

2008. Hungarian GP was a clear cut Ferrari inflicted catastrophe where they threw away a clear victory of spectacularly starting Massa, as well as the Singapore race where Massa dominated. Monumental self inflicted blows.

Wasn't 2008 the season where Massa spun a dozen times, a handful of times in Silverstone alone?

Difficult to win a title if a driver is so error prone.

Paolo_Lasardi wrote:Wasn't 2008 the season where Massa spun a dozen times, a handful of times in Silverstone alone?

Difficult to win a title if a driver is so error prone.

Difficult to win a title with a mediocre drive full stop.

Paolo_Lasardi wrote:Wasn't 2008 the season where Massa spun a dozen times, a handful of times in Silverstone alone?

Difficult to win a title if a driver is so error prone.

Both he and Kimi spun that day. I blame the car set-up; it was as if the Ferrari stubbornly refused to point its nose forward.

If a prime Vettel was driving the F2008, I doubt the WDC would have even been close.

Given that we now have hindsight about the 2 drivers in the F2008, I think we can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that the car was surely good enough to win both titles that year. A lot of shenanigans went on that year though, but even with that in mind, I think 2008 was the worse of the 2 for Ferrari.

Wasn't it 2008 that Massa would have won if not Renault fixed a race?

AnRs wrote:Wasn't it 2008 that Massa would have won if not Renault fixed a race?

Unless Renault 'fixed' the Ferrari fuel hose too, no.

Flash2k11 wrote:

AnRs wrote:Wasn't it 2008 that Massa would have won if not Renault fixed a race?

Unless Renault 'fixed' the Ferrari fuel hose too, no.

Had nothing to do with that race;

"Ten laps into the inaugural night race, Massa had built a steady gap of three-seconds over Hamilton, the two title rivals of 2008 in a race of their own given that Kimi was a further seven-seconds adrift at this point. But between lap 12 and 14 of the race, a chain of events occurred that would give the Renault of Alonso an unlikely lead, and in hindsight, cost Felipe Massa the 2008 World Championship."

AnRs wrote:

Flash2k11 wrote:

AnRs wrote:Wasn't it 2008 that Massa would have won if not Renault fixed a race?

Unless Renault 'fixed' the Ferrari fuel hose too, no.

Had nothing to do with that race;

"Ten laps into the inaugural night race, Massa had built a steady gap of three-seconds over Hamilton, the two title rivals of 2008 in a race of their own given that Kimi was a further seven-seconds adrift at this point. But between lap 12 and 14 of the race, a chain of events occurred that would give the Renault of Alonso an unlikely lead, and in hindsight, cost Felipe Massa the 2008 World Championship."

Singapore 2008? Not sure i'm buying this. One can't assume that all things would have played out the same in the remaining races. For instance, McLaren may opted for an entirely different setup/strategy in Brazil, in order to try to win, instead of just aiming for 5th.

""When you are leading the championship it is a different mind-set to when you are chasing. I was just thinking about the championship in the remaining races and getting the points I needed to win the title. If I had needed wins I would have gone for them.I was driving with one eye on the world championship and wasn't going to take too many risks. There are things that happened last year with penalties that affected my points. And I still think I won in Belgium. I think that was my race." (Hamilton, speaking in 2009)

2008 should have been theirs. Quite aside from the pitstop mishap in Singapore, I think Kovalainen's 7th place in the drivers' championship highlights how superior the Ferrari was to the McLaren that year.

j man wrote:2008 should have been theirs. Quite aside from the pitstop mishap in Singapore, I think Kovalainen's 7th place in the drivers' championship highlights how superior the Ferrari was to the McLaren that year.

Highlights how bad Kovaliainen was. Vettel outscored him in the 2nd half of the season.

tootsie323 wrote:

Paolo_Lasardi wrote:Wasn't 2008 the season where Massa spun a dozen times, a handful of times in Silverstone alone?

Difficult to win a title if a driver is so error prone.

Both he and Kimi spun that day. I blame the car set-up; it was as if the Ferrari stubbornly refused to point its nose forward.

Every car in the field spun or went off track that day at least once. Kimi was Hamiltons match in the first stint and catching him for the lead by the end of it. But Ferrari got the tyre strategy wrong, they did the opposite to Mcalren by either not changing the front tyres or changing them when Mclaren kept them.

AnRs wrote:

Flash2k11 wrote:

AnRs wrote:Wasn't it 2008 that Massa would have won if not Renault fixed a race?

Unless Renault 'fixed' the Ferrari fuel hose too, no.

Had nothing to do with that race;

"Ten laps into the inaugural night race, Massa had built a steady gap of three-seconds over Hamilton, the two title rivals of 2008 in a race of their own given that Kimi was a further seven-seconds adrift at this point. But between lap 12 and 14 of the race, a chain of events occurred that would give the Renault of Alonso an unlikely lead, and in hindsight, cost Felipe Massa the 2008 World Championship."

Massa was still going to finish high in the points and ahead of Hamilton that race before the fuel hose error occurred. With crashgate they likely would have been 3rd and 4th. Without it 1st and 2nd. Massa would have lost a net 1 point from crashgate and come 3rd without the fuel hose error, gaining 1 point on Hamilton. He would have gained 2 if they had been first and 2nd.

But the fuel error cost him a net 6 points to Lewis in the title race.

KingVoid wrote:If a prime Vettel was driving the F2008, I doubt the WDC would have even been close.

Agreed

Hamilton would have won it with a few races to spare.

Yes because evidently Vettel is a worse driver than Massa and Kimi.

davidheath461 wrote:

KingVoid wrote:If a prime Vettel was driving the F2008, I doubt the WDC would have even been close.

Agreed

Hamilton would have won it with a few races to spare.

Vettel, Hamilton, Alonso - each would have won the 2008 wdc with Ferrari easily. Add Schumacher to that list.

GingerFurball wrote:

j man wrote:2008 should have been theirs. Quite aside from the pitstop mishap in Singapore, I think Kovalainen's 7th place in the drivers' championship highlights how superior the Ferrari was to the McLaren that year.

Highlights how bad Kovaliainen was. Vettel outscored him in the 2nd half of the season.

Its the lowest a WDC's team mate has finished in the rankings since 1994 but Verstappen only did 10 of the 16 races. You have to go back to Lauda's retirement filled year to find a WDC's team mate who did the entire year finish lower, but Lauda posted 13 DNFs in 16 races that year too.

The podium per finish rate I believe is the lowest of any modern WDC team mate too. 3 podiums from 14 finishes. Which also only included two 4ths too.

The worst years for WDC team mates -

2008- 7th - Heikki got 3 podiums in 18 races (4 DNFs)
2005- 5th - Fisichella got 3 podiums in 19 races (6 DNFs)
1994- 10th - Verstappen got 2 podiums in 10 races (6 DNFs)
1986- 6th - Rosberg got 1 podium in 16 races (11 DNFs)
1985- 10th Lauda got 1 podium in 16 races (13 DNFs)

Heikki also out scored and out performed Fisichella in his debut year at Renault in 2007, including finishing ahead of him in the last 7 races they both finished in.

Paolo_Lasardi wrote:

davidheath461 wrote:

KingVoid wrote:If a prime Vettel was driving the F2008, I doubt the WDC would have even been close.

Agreed

Hamilton would have won it with a few races to spare.

Vettel, Hamilton, Alonso - each would have won the 2008 wdc with Ferrari easily. Add Schumacher to that list.

Not sure why you are upvoting him. He believes that Hamilton would have won the 2008 WDC with a few races to spare if Vettel was in the Ferrari instead of Massa/Kimi.

That claim is obviously delusional.

Alienturnedhuman wrote:Obviously, the car was still good, I mean, it was built on successful DNA, but I remember that POBRatings graded the McLaren as the third best car that season, after the Ferrari (fastest) and BMW (second fastest)

There is no way you can argue that BMW was better than McLaren in 2008. In the first half of the season maybe, but then they stopped developing the car midway through the year. In the second half of the season BMW were often fighting with Renault and Toyota over fringe points.

Vettel outscoring Kovalainen in the 2nd half of 2008 mostly comes from the fact that he won in Monza, and in Monza the Toro Rosso was one of the quickest cars (Bourdais was 4th on the grid) - it was a Newey chassis with the powerful Ferrari engine on a power track.

Hamilton was the fastest driver on track once he finally got going and cleared Raikkonen. Vettel finished only 6 seconds ahead of Kovalainen. In all likelihood the McLaren was still faster.

mikeyg123 wrote:

Paolo_Lasardi wrote:Wasn't 2008 the season where Massa spun a dozen times, a handful of times in Silverstone alone?

Difficult to win a title if a driver is so error prone.

Difficult to win a title with a mediocre drive full stop.

And to add to this, Massa has claimed that Williams would be in a far worse situation in 2018 if he isn't retained for next year.

KingVoid wrote:

Paolo_Lasardi wrote:

davidheath461 wrote:

KingVoid wrote:If a prime Vettel was driving the F2008, I doubt the WDC would have even been close.

Agreed

Hamilton would have won it with a few races to spare.

Vettel, Hamilton, Alonso - each would have won the 2008 wdc with Ferrari easily. Add Schumacher to that list.

Not sure why you are upvoting him. He believes that Hamilton would have won the 2008 WDC with a few races to spare if Vettel was in the Ferrari instead of Massa/Kimi.

That claim is obviously delusional.

I read it as sort of two different statements, first agreeing that Vettel would have won the WDC and then also going on to say that Hamilton would have won it (in the Ferrari) with a few races to spare.

If it's actually meant the way you're interpreting it, that's one of the more delusional things I've read. There is no way on earth a 2008 Massa is better than a circa 2013 Vettel.

While it's true that in a fair world where results are determined on merit and luck plays no part they'd certainly have won both WDC and WCC in 08 and WDC in 17, I don't think it was a uniquely Ferrari screw up - there's plenty of other examples of teams losing out on reliability like McLaren in 05 or like Red Bull so nearly did in 09, and indeed it was reliability that kept Ferrari just about in contention against Red Bull so often in the 09-13 period. If I remember correctly they also had superior reliability on their side in the close championship battles from 97-2000, before going on to dominate. They did lose out in 06 of course.

KingVoid wrote:

Paolo_Lasardi wrote:

davidheath461 wrote:

KingVoid wrote:If a prime Vettel was driving the F2008, I doubt the WDC would have even been close.

Agreed

Hamilton would have won it with a few races to spare.

Vettel, Hamilton, Alonso - each would have won the 2008 wdc with Ferrari easily. Add Schumacher to that list.

Not sure why you are upvoting him. He believes that Hamilton would have won the 2008 WDC with a few races to spare if Vettel was in the Ferrari instead of Massa/Kimi.

That claim is obviously delusional.

Why delusional? We've seen Vettel nearly throw away the 2010 and 2012 championships when he had a bigger car advantage over his nearest championship rival than Massa had with the F2008.

We've seen this season where Vettel has had an equal car to the Mercedes yet he's already nearly lost the championship following errors in Canada, Baku, Silverstone and Singapore, as well as reliability issues (though Hamilton has had these too).

davidheath461 wrote:

KingVoid wrote:

Paolo_Lasardi wrote:

davidheath461 wrote:

KingVoid wrote:If a prime Vettel was driving the F2008, I doubt the WDC would have even been close.

Agreed

Hamilton would have won it with a few races to spare.

Vettel, Hamilton, Alonso - each would have won the 2008 wdc with Ferrari easily. Add Schumacher to that list.

Not sure why you are upvoting him. He believes that Hamilton would have won the 2008 WDC with a few races to spare if Vettel was in the Ferrari instead of Massa/Kimi.

That claim is obviously delusional.

Why delusional? We've seen Vettel nearly throw away the 2010 and 2012 championships when he had a bigger car advantage over his nearest championship rival than Massa had with the F2008.

We've seen this season where Vettel has had an equal car to the Mercedes yet he's already nearly lost the championship following errors in Canada, Baku, Silverstone and Singapore, as well as reliability issues (though Hamilton has had these too).

How did he nearly throw away the title in 2010?

I'm really unsure how anyone can make the case for him being significantly worse than Massa?

mikeyg123 wrote:
How did he nearly throw away the title in 2010?

I'm really unsure how anyone can make the case for him being significantly worse than Massa?

The question of the thread is not "Who is better, Vettel or Massa?"

He nearly threw away the title because he underperformed/crashed at multiple races. He should have been winning closer to 10 races that year and should have cruised to the title.

Despite everything, in 2008 they had chances to win the title until the last moment, not so much in 2017. I'm going to pick 2017.

davidheath461 wrote:

mikeyg123 wrote:
How did he nearly throw away the title in 2010?

I'm really unsure how anyone can make the case for him being significantly worse than Massa?

The question of the thread is not "Who is better, Vettel or Massa?"

He nearly threw away the title because he underperformed/crashed at multiple races. He should have been winning closer to 10 races that year and should have cruised to the title.

But surely considering Massa took Lewis to the final race, if you think Vettel wouldn't then you must be rating Massa higher?

Vettel crashed twice in 2010 as did most of the top contenders, Hamilton included. Vettel also lost 3 wins with mechanical issues. Without them he would have walked the title.

davidheath461 wrote:Why delusional? We've seen Vettel nearly throw away the 2010 and 2012 championships when he had a bigger car advantage over his nearest championship rival than Massa had with the F2008.

In 2010 Vettel had 3 mechanical failures when leading, without those he would have walked the title 2011-style.

There's no chance the RB7 was a better car than the F2008.

We've seen this season where Vettel has had an equal car to the Mercedes yet he's already nearly lost the championship following errors in Canada, Baku, Silverstone and Singapore, as well as reliability issues (though Hamilton has had these too).

Only in 2 of those 4 races did Vettel actually make a mistake.

And Vettel has lost more points than Hamilton has due to reliability.

The question of the thread is not "Who is better, Vettel or Massa?"

You claimed that Hamilton would have won the WDC with several races to spare if Vettel was in the F2008, therefore you indirectly claimed that Massa is better than Vettel.

mikeyg123 wrote:

davidheath461 wrote:

mikeyg123 wrote:
How did he nearly throw away the title in 2010?

I'm really unsure how anyone can make the case for him being significantly worse than Massa?

The question of the thread is not "Who is better, Vettel or Massa?"

He nearly threw away the title because he underperformed/crashed at multiple races. He should have been winning closer to 10 races that year and should have cruised to the title.

But surely considering Massa took Lewis to the final race, if you think Vettel wouldn't then you must be rating Massa higher?

Vettel crashed twice in 2010 as did most of the top contenders, Hamilton included. Vettel also lost 3 wins with mechanical issues. Without them he would have walked the title.

No not really - unless you consider drivers' performances static, irrespective of car.

Hamilton had 2 DNFS because of mechanical issues, Alonso had 1 and ended up being short of engines by the end of the year. They all had their own issues.

Point still stands - Vettel should've won closer to 10 races and walked the title irrespective of those failures.

KingVoid wrote: In 2010 Vettel had 3 mechanical failures when leading, without those he would have walked the title 2011-style.

He should've walked the title irrespective of that. And as i said in my other post - he was not the only championship contender to have issues.

And Bahrain/Korea were certainly not guaranteed wins.

There's no chance the RB7 was a better car than the F2008.

the RB7 had a bigger advantage over the F2012.

Only in 2 of those 4 races did Vettel actually make a mistake.

And Vettel has lost more points than Hamilton has due to reliability.

He hit Hamilton in Baku - twice. He was only punished for one of those collisions and the punishment was considered lenient.
He decided to play bumper cars in Silverstone and locked up his tyres badly leading to his tyre failure.
He took out 3 cars in Singapore and was unpunished.
He hit Verstappen and lost his FW in canada.

The question of the thread is not "Who is better, Vettel or Massa?"

You claimed that Hamilton would have won the WDC with several races to spare if Vettel was in the F2008, therefore you indirectly claimed that Massa is better than Vettel.[/quote]

No. See my post above.

davidheath461 wrote:

mikeyg123 wrote:

davidheath461 wrote:

mikeyg123 wrote:
How did he nearly throw away the title in 2010?

I'm really unsure how anyone can make the case for him being significantly worse than Massa?

The question of the thread is not "Who is better, Vettel or Massa?"

He nearly threw away the title because he underperformed/crashed at multiple races. He should have been winning closer to 10 races that year and should have cruised to the title.

But surely considering Massa took Lewis to the final race, if you think Vettel wouldn't then you must be rating Massa higher?

Vettel crashed twice in 2010 as did most of the top contenders, Hamilton included. Vettel also lost 3 wins with mechanical issues. Without them he would have walked the title.

No not really - unless you consider drivers' performances static, irrespective of car.

Hamilton had 2 DNFS because of mechanical issues, Alonso had 1 and ended up being short of engines by the end of the year. They all had their own issues.

Point still stands - Vettel should've won closer to 10 races and walked the title irrespective of those failures.

Did Vettel really make more mistakes in 2010 than Massa made in 2008?

davidheath461 wrote:He should've walked the title irrespective of that. And as i said in my other post - he was not the only championship contender to have issues.

But he lost far more points than any other driver did due to reliability.

Likewise, the RB6 was not like the Mercedes 2014-16. Ferrari and McLaren were clearly closer.

And Bahrain/Korea were certainly not guaranteed wins.

How often did another driver pass Vettel for the lead in 2010?

the RB7 had a bigger advantage over the F2012.

The RB7 had to contend with another car that was just as fast but was managed badly and was unreliable (the MP4/27). The F2008 did not have to deal with such an opponent.

He decided to play bumper cars in Silverstone and locked up his tyres badly leading to his tyre failure.
He hit Verstappen and lost his FW in canada.

Vettel is not to blame for a puncture in Silverstone? Vettel had one lockup. Drivers lock up all the time and it almost never results in a puncture.
If you're going to blame Vettel for Singapore, then you cannot blame him for Canada either where he was trapped between Bottas diving down his inside and Verstappen on his outside. You can only blame him for one of the accidents (Singapore or Canada), not both.

I think anyone that tries to blame Vettel for losing his front wing in Canada looses all credibility.

mikeyg123 wrote:I think anyone that tries to blame Vettel for losing his front wing in Canada looses all credibility.

In 2008, Ferrari had the best car. Any car that has Massa nearly winning a title is undispuedly a top car.

In 2017, they are at best 50/50 with Mercedes.

Yeah they've screwed up this year but 08 was a bigger missed opportunity.