Give Vettel the credit he is due

Has any driver in history been so heavily criticised as Sebastian Vettel simply for doing his job so brilliantly?

His performances during the past four seasons have been nothing short of stunning. At the age of 26 and with only six and a half years in Formula 1 under his belt, he is already a quadruple world champion and ranked among the greats in terms of wins (behind only Michael Schumacher, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna). He's also the third most successful qualifier. But those numbers tell only part of the story.

Vettel's crime is the heinous one of having the best car under him and exploiting it ruthlessly. To put it another way, he is doing exactly what every racing driver who ever starts out on the road to grand prix racing aims to achieve.

Without question, the Red Bull has been the car of choice on the balance of this season, just as it was in 2011, even though it was not until after the August break that the team hit truly dominant form. But in both 2010 and 2012 he had to fight hard to recover from a long way down in the points, seizing the championship with strong late-season performances. Easy? Hardly.

Take Brazil last year. Vettel played a big part in putting himself into the position where he spun on the first lap after contact with Bruno Senna and was then collected. But his comeback drive, in a hobbled car, leaning on a machine that he had every reason to expect was on the brink of failure in those early recovery laps, was the stuff of legend.

Vettel's recovery in Brazil in 2012 was legendary © XPB

The ongoing debate about whether the driver or the car is the most important part of the competitive equation is a fatuous one. Motorsport has always been about the combination of the two.

A driver cannot change the laws of physics to make a mediocre car into a winner - all they can do is extract the maximum from it. The greats do that with a regularity beyond the 'average' grand prix driver (who is still, by any measure, hugely able).

Likewise, given how competitive modern F1 is, a merely decent driver in the best car will usually struggle to win the title, and given how tight the competition is these days, will likely fail in F1.

What must not be underestimated is the contribution a great driver makes to the best car. Watch Vettel in slower corners and you will see quite how brilliantly proactive he can be.

Senna is lauded for the way he blipped the throttle to keep the turbo spooled up ready for the moment the power was fed in. In a similar way, Vettel is able to provoke the rear of the car to perfection, summoning the exhaust-blowing effect to create downforce when he needs it without ever getting the car too out of shape. This is a fine art and one that is beyond even as good a driver as Mark Webber.

To be able to do this, first you must have a car under you that responds to such a technique; but it's just one example of how Vettel ensures that a car is able to lap at the extremes of its performance envelope.

Once mindlessly criticised for not being able to overtake, his recent campaigns have been littered with key manoeuvres, particularly early in the race or after his first pitstop, that have made his path to victory so much easier. Often over the past four years, key overtaking moves have allowed him to boss the race rather than play catch-up.

This aspect of his game has become critical given Red Bull's philosophy of setting the car up for peak lap-time rather than straightline speed. Some of these passes are genuine do-or-die moments where the driver has to make the difference between winning or finishing second or third.

Vettel's work ethic is nearly unmatched © XPB

Vettel also has a tremendous work ethic. Like all the best elite sportspeople, he leaves no stone unturned and does not buy into the idea that he can simply drive around problems.

Generally, he learns from his mistakes. In China last year, he switched to an earlier version of the Red Bull's rear end because he did not like the handling characteristics of the new one.

That weekend, Adrian Newey focused far more on Webber's car and Vettel struggled. He realised that he simply had to adapt. So he did.

But let's face it, the critics are less interested in what Vettel has done than what he hasn't done. After his initial success, he has not found himself struggling in a less competitive car, as Fernando Alonso is currently doing and Michael Schumacher did in his early days with Ferrari. Why? Because he's still enjoying his early success.

Over the coming years, there is certain to be a point where Vettel is in a car that's less competitive than his current one. The characteristics he has shown during the past four seasons will stand him in good stead when that happens. But it's unfair to criticise a driver who is still relatively early in his career for not having gone through this phase.

It is true he's not gone up against a true superstar team-mate. While he has ticked the box of greatness by making an extremely good team-mate in Webber look pretty ordinary, we've not seen him up against a fellow world champion.

Such a partnership would be mouth-watering and every F1 fan would love to see it. But make no mistake, such pairings are rare. Next year's Alonso/Kimi Raikkonen alliance at Ferrari is only the sixth time two drivers with world titles to their name have been team-mates.

Related to this criticism is the fact that he's the lead driver at Red Bull. Certainly, he is. And on performance. Winning in F1 is so difficult that you can rest assured, were Webber better than Vettel, he would become the focal point. Likewise if Daniel Ricciardo jumps in the car next year and is consistently faster, Red Bull is not going to compromise its own results to make Vettel look better.

Vettel is Red Bull's lead driver, but he's earned it too © XPB

But many of these challenges are to come for Vettel. His chief crime appears to be that people are rushing to judgement based not only on what he hasn't done, but what he has not had the opportunity to do. Look at the detail, the way he has capitalised on having the best car (but not by any means a car with as big an advantage as many of the greats enjoyed at times), and you see a master at work.

It's perfectly acceptable to reserve judgement on his greatness until he moves through a wider range of circumstances, and his status will constantly be re-evaluated and examined as his career goes on. But to suggest he is somehow unworthy of his recent success is nonsensical.

It has been a great privilege to have covered Vettel's (first?) four world championships as a journalist for AUTOSPORT. The way he conducts himself off-track, his virtuosity on it and his ability to nail it when it really matters leave no doubt that he is a true great, and when he faces other challenges in his career, he will no doubt conquer them.

What is a shame is that people are so quick to deride achievement. Vettel has become a force of nature. As relentless as Alonso and as brilliant a qualifier as Senna. In decades to come, people will envy those of us who had the chance to watch him at work just as today those of us who are too young to have watched Jackie Stewart or Jim Clark in their pomp do.

Then, of course, there is the elephant in the room - Vettel's character. Frankly, the way he is perceived in the wider world is an extraordinary distortion of reality. He has always been unfailingly polite, humble and courteous in his dealings with AUTOSPORT, and is loved within his team. This is a driver who combines brilliance on-track with affability off it. Yet the way he is portrayed in some quarters is nothing short of slanderous.

Yes, he made a spectacular misjudgement when he rode roughshod over team orders and passed Webber to win in Malaysia this year. That reflected badly on him and is a negative as far as a character reference goes, but that one incident has been used as validation for every other claim about his conduct and behaviour, no matter how spurious.

Vettel: polite, humble and courteous © XPB

After all, he has never deliberately driven into championship rivals to his own advantage as several others around him near the top of the world championships list did. He's also avoided engaging in the kind of mind games and tricks designed to gain the upper hand within a team favoured by some other drivers.

There is no doubt Vettel is a great; you can see it in the way he works, the way he handles the car, the way he interacts with the team. Yes, there has been the odd mistake, but that's the case for every driver, particularly given how close the competition is today.

Where he figures in that pantheon can only be decided once his career is done and dusted. Certainly, next year, with its new regulations, will be a fresh challenge entirely and the chance to see how he adapts to a new style of driving and perhaps even an uncompetitive car.

But make no mistake, he is among the greats already. The question still to be answered is where exactly he figures.