Sebastian Vettel: when consistency annoys

Sebastian Vettel has reigned the world of Formula One for more than three years now, and he is clearly the favourite again for the drivers’ title for the ongoing year. It is human psychology thatt when you support some team whole heartedly, you cannot see it losing. It is the same here; people have their own choice of drivers, so it is very difficult for them to watch their drivers lose again and again to the same rival (Vettel).

If a sport is dominated by a single person, I don’t find anything wrong in this. As swimming is synonymous with Michel Phelps, now F1 has become synonymous with Vettel. It is an amazing fact that when you think about F1, the first name which strikes is the “Baby German”. But this is not happening for the first time — previously, it was Michel Schumacher, Ayrton Senna, Niki Lauda, and now its Vettel. The only difference between him and these legends is their age; he has achieved all the success at a very young age.

Booing is a negative gesture

Winning three championships in a row and performing brilliantly in the next season as well can be just considered as pure talent. The fans are being really mean by booing him. He might have the advantage of a fast car, all thanks to Red Bull’s car engineer Adrian Newey, but that is not the way of treating a champion, who is the number one today because of his and his team’s hard work. This behaviour would have been understood if Vettel had his involvement in controversies of cheating or some wrong-doing.

“He is a great kid, has a big heart, of course he is a competitor and he likes winning and it’s a shame for getting this treatment by the fans of the sport,” Christan Horner, Red Bull’s team principal said, three days back in an interview. Standing on the podium with the winner’s trophy is a racer’s most cherished moment. By booing, out of jealousy, as their driver lost, fans are tarnishing that special moment of Vettel. Though he says all these things do not affect him, he is just a 26-year old boy after all; so he might get upset but doesn’t reveal it.

He lost just two races after Montréal, and got a hat trick of wins too. He has got booed in Belgium, Italy, Singapore, starting in Britain. Only in Germany he was spared because it was his home Grand Prix. In Marina Bay, the former Formula One racer Martin Brundle, who took the post race podium interview, had to stop his interview with the racers and make the crowd quiet, who were continuously booing Vettel. It is the most disappointing side of Formula One, spoiling the charm of the sport.

The Malaysia incident can be the reason

Vettel was asked to stay behind Mark Webber in the closing laps of this year’s Malaysian Grand Prix. He overtook Webber, thereby ignoring the orders and won the race. This episode got him a lot of criticism and fans use this incident as one of their major reasons for booing him. They are booing one’s passion for winning. This is not a sporting behavior. There is nothing wrong in being ambitious.

Ferrari fans have all the reasons to boo Vettel

Unlike last year, Vettel has dominated from the beginning itself. 2013 is again seeing the rivalry between him and Fernando Alonso. Though the Spaniard doesn’t have a fast car, he manages a podium finish almost every race. After doing so much, he is still 60 points behind Vettel. This frustrates the fans and leads to all the booing. Every race you see, the circuit is red; many Ferrari fans turn up on the race day.

“Most of the fans are dressed in red. Since they have a lot of tradition in F1, Ferrari has a very strong fan base,” Vettel said recently in one of his interviews. “They are wealthy enough to go to a lot of races. As long as they are booing we are doing a great job. That’s the way I see it.”

I do not believe dominance of a racer is leading to failure of the sport. Formula One is all about pace, speeding—the irony here is that people have problems with Vettel being too fast. These boos cannot stop him from winning the races and if this pace of his continues, he is again going to reach a milestone of becoming the youngest racer to win four Championships in a row.