There is a worrying tribalism creeping into the community of Formula One fans. A quick perusal of the comments "below the line" after Formula 1 reports or comment articles on the BBC or the websites of British newspapers reveals a core of fans who refuse to acknowledge the ability of Vettel, most commonly, and Alonso. It is the sort of tribalism which says that the greatness of the individual or team you support is measured by the inferiority of the competition.

It feels like a peculiarly post-Hamilton phenomenon, bringing with him as he did a new fan-base who had not watched the sport much before. My earliest memories as a Formula 1 fan are the bitter exchanges of the Senna-Prost era; and one can say many things about that period but at no point would you have found a Senna fan accusing Prost of being an unworthy champion because he wasn't exciting to watch or didn't overtake frequently on his way to victory. Boring, perhaps but it would never have occurred to us to accuse him of lacking talent in any way.

These days however you find an obviously talented driver, in the form of Sebastian Vettel, accused of somehow lacking in talent because he doesn't engage in the cut and thrust associated with Hamilton or Senna before him. Not by anyone whose opinion counts mind. Someone who's opinion still counts for something is Sir Stirling, who recently used the phrases "head and shoulders above everybody else" and "my God, he's good" when talking about Vettel on the Motorsport Magazine podcast. It is a short list of racing drivers upon whom Stirling Moss has heaped such praise.

One would have thought that winning his first race in atrocious conditions in a lowly Toro Rosso would have convinced the doubters that his talent isn't just down to the hardware. In a neat historical link, it was in a car from the team which would go on to become Toro Rosso that Alonso would first demonstrate his prodigious talent on Bernie's stage.

Twice this season Vettel has demonstrated the sort of awareness associated with Juan Manuel Fangio. The sort of otherwordly awareness the Argentine demonstrated by his performance at Monaco on one occasion, when he slowed for a collision around a blind corner by noticing that the spectators weren't looking at him and reasoning that since they weren't looking at him, as race leader, something big must have happened around the corner.

Vettel's interpretation of this theme has so far come on two occasions this season. The first at Valencia when, having not been informed of his team mate's change to the harder tyre, he radioed his team to ask how fast Webber was going on the primes. Vettel later revealed that he learnt of the change by watching the giant TV screens around the track… while navigating an unforgiving street circuit. Having negotiated (badly) the wide open spaces of Johannesburg's shorter, but infinitely better, racetrack at Zwartkops I can barely comprehend having the spare capacity to watch trackside TVs while threading a Formula 1 car between concrete walls.