The Speed commentators this weekend kept talking a lot of about slipstreams and tows, I gather because of the longer straights, yet I had the impression that had a trump on the usual "They're going slower because they are caught up behind somebody and don't have clean air." Why is that? To counter that Vettel opened up a massive gap on Alonso and never looked back (how is that even remotely fun?) with no benefit of drafting. I gather despite the praise clean air is still better.
The McLaren -v- the Schumacher Mercedes GP car in a straight line was a good example, the McLaren was maxing out at 329/330km/h down the main straight, right on the rev-limiter while the Mercedes, presumably with less downforce and longer gearing was able to do at least 330km/h or a bit more on its own with no help from anything else.
You could see it a few times, Lewis would slipstream after the Parabolica and get pull out of the slipstream, only to fall back and have to pull in and slipstream again but then run into the rev-limiter.
That straightline speed saved the Mercedes many times, and made up for its poor grip and wearing out the rear tyres quickly (which it has done often this season).
It is somewhat sad to see the Vettel walkover - but that's the way it is when a good driver is in a very superior car, and the other team driver seems to be quite unlucky.
The team worked hard for that superiority, so credit to them.
If more testing was allowed in season, we might see a bit more competition with other teams catching up to Red Bull. The way things are now, Mercedes might as well write off this season and start developing and testing next years car on the simulators (as McLaren does).
Vettel's performance shows the advantage of massively superior car performance. Even though it isn't the fastest going down the straights, if you can get through the corners very fast you have a chance to get enough gap to hold off a faster car down the next straight. The Red Bulls typically did this in Turkey last year through the fastest corner, going through that corner at full throttle, while everything else had to downshift.
Schumacher tried it in the Mercedes in qualifying just once at that race, and very nearly had the mother and father of all accidents. Goes to show how big an advantage that downforce is, even on high speed circuits.
