[Craig Woollard]

Following their rather dramatic battle at the British Grand Prix, arguably the feistiest these two have gotten on track with each other, I was wondering this: how do F1 Fanatics regard the Vettel-Alonso rivalry compared to other rivalries?

This battle has been going on for quite a while now, really since 2010. Other drivers have come in and out of this tussle too, like Mark Webber, Kimi Raikkonen, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, with Felipe Massa and Romain Grosjean putting a nose in from time to time, but the two main protagonists over the last five years really have been the main men of Ferrari and Red Bull.

Seeing these two great Champions go wheel-to-wheel at various points has been fantastic as a neutral. Their high-speed duels at Monza and now their absolutely supreme battle at Silverstone are the sort of things that we used to see from Prost and Senna when they were arch rivals, and also Piquet and Mansell. The two have also been highly critical of each other on team radio, and also in the interviews yet they have an immense amount of respect for each other which is nice to see. With the two Mercedes storming off ahead, I hope these two entertain us more this season, because in my eyes, it’s becoming one of those rivalries that we will all remember for a very long time to come.

[sato113]

the thing is with the hamilton massa rivalry, is it always ended in crashes. I can’t think of that as a good rivalry, like ham/alonso in 2007.

[Calum]

It was good to see them wheel to wheel. Clean racing on the limits, as it usually is when Champions race each other.

[Iestyn Davies]

Great topic @craig-o. I have to say that I do agree with you as well.

My theory is, we are witnessing two of the greats, and with Hamilton in there too, we really are at another golden age of drivers, just like in the 80s. This ‘top three’ may in time be regarded almost as highly as Prost-Senna-Schumacher IMO, especially if Hamilton and Vettel continue to reel off the wins and titles in the two top teams. This also requires Vettel to dominate Ricciardo however, and not be fighting Alonso for 5th, but more for the win, as was the case at Monza.

I am waiting to see which will turn out to be the better battle.. Alonso/Vettel or Hamilton/Vettel. We’ve had a bit of both so far, but up till now, Alonso has been more memorable, with Hamilton mainly fighting Webber in 2010, or having lots of failures in 2012. But there is scope for these two to really battle hard in the next few years.. Will it be as respectful and clean as with Alonso? Hard to say.. They also have previous battle experience from F3…

[wsrgo]

@fastiesty Ah that battle in…was it Lausitz or Norisring? I keep forgetting…

[Atticus]

It’s strange that while Alonso had a lot of on-track duel with both Hamilton and Vettel, we are yet to witness Hamilton and Vettel go wheel to wheel a lot of times in F1.

[Nick]

I’d say on the whole there have been little rivalries being consistently fought out on track in recent years. Still, the occasional WDC dual is more than we got in the days of Schumacher and Hakkinen.

[Author]

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