F1 Talk: Ferrari and Vettel suffer a disastrous weekend

Lewis Hamilton is all set for a 5th world drivers championship after a dominant race weekend at the Japanese Grand Prix. He extended his lead to 67 points as Sebastian Vettel suffered one of the worst weekends’ of his career. If Hamilton can beat Vettel by eight points or more at the next race in Austin, it will officially be game over and the “Drive for Five” will have reached it’s conclusion.

I often talk about strategical errors with Ferrari and unfortunately they made several errors during the most important parts of the weekend: qualifying and the race.

In qualifying, Ferrari’s poor team management was shown up and this time it had disastrous consequences. Ferrari sent their cars out on intermediate tyres at the start of Q3 whilst everyone else went out on slicks. How could they get it so wrong? Surely they should have some people out on track watching the weather or rather than take a big risk, watch what tyres everyone else put on and then send the cars out on the correct tyre. Or even send Raikkonen out on the intermediates and see if the track was wet enough for inters or not, then make a decision with Vettel by sending him out 30 seconds later.

It’s not the first time that Ferrari have made the wrong strategical play.

That said, I believe the drivers were more at fault than the team on Saturday. Both Vettel and Raikkonen touched the wet part of the kerb midway through the Spoon Curve. They should both have the experience and knowledge of knowing that the kerbs were still damp and that you should stay off them (especially on a banker lap). Touching the kerb sent the car sliding and completely off line, thus ruining their laps. The rain arrived and out it qualifying was all about those first flying laps in Q3.

Vettel’s lap was already a bit scruffy. He wasn’t quite on the racing line going through the slalom that is sector one, going a little bit wide at the Dunlop Curve because of that. At the exit of Degner Two, he had a massive slide and probably lost at least 0.2 at that corner alone so it was already going wrong. Had he not made the mistake as the Spoon Curve, he would have at least been third, instead he would start 8th.

The team may have messed up a bit, which is frustrating and shouldn’t happen; but the drivers still had ideal conditions and should have been able to set clean laps, just like Hamilton and Bottas did. I remember when Vettel was the master of qualifying during his Red Bull days and even at times in the Ferrari but he hasn’t had a pole position since the German Grand Prix in July. He’s made mistakes in every Q3 too many times and his Suzuka Q3 lap was very messy.

Things got worse 24 hours later.

Vettel had a very good start as Hamilton, Bottas, Verstappen and Raikkonen (the top 4) remained in their positions. He dispatched both Toro Rossos, Romain Grosjean and then took advantage of the collision between Max Verstappen and Kimi Raikkonen to put himself in a great position compared to where he started.

The news that Verstappen would have to serve a five second time penalty, due to that incident, was even better news for Vettel. All he had to do was be patient and only go for an overtake if there wasn’t much risk involved. Instead, he went for a move down the inside of Verstappen at the first part of the Spoon Curve,

Vettel saw Verstappen harvesting his batter (by the flashing red light) whilst he was using up his ERS. The German had momentum and was carrying a lot more speed, the head wind helped him as well but he still had the job of outbraking Verstappen to get up alongside him. Spoon is not the best overtaking spot on the track and the braking zone is very small so it’s always a risky move if you’re going for an overtake.

Verstappen left just about enough room in my opinion and had he gone any wider, he would have had to go off the road and onto the runoff area. He had to turn into the corner at some point. Vettel did get up alongside but was never ahead. With the speed he was carrying into the corner, he would have needed Verstappen to let him through or go off the track to make the move stick.

Why would Verstappen do that? Racing is not about letting your rivals overtake you easily, even though much of the midfield always make things easier when a front runner is coming through the field to overtake them (as Vettel showed on Sunday) so Verstappen had every right to turn in when he did. He didn’t turn into Vettel, it was more of a case of Vettel carrying so much speed that he made contact with Verstappen. Nobody was fully to blame, so the stewards got it right by calling it a “racing incident” but I do think Vettel was more at fault.

Like I said, I can see why Vettel would go for the move but I just feel that other drivers wouldn’t have gone for it and they would rather play the waiting game. With Vettel being so close going into Spoon, he would have had a good chance of overtaking Verstappen at the final chicane or turn one, a place where there’s less risk involved.

Both drivers suffered bargeboard damage and Vettel could only recover to sixth place. Since the aftermath of the British Grand Prix, Hamilton has scored 168 out of the possible 175 points available. A staggering statistic, whilst Vettel has scored just 93 points in the same period. That’s a massive 75 point swing in just seven races. It’s quite clear to see that the pendulum has taken a massive swing and it doesn’t look like it will swing back in Vettel’s favour anytime soon.

Verstappen put the pressure on Bottas, even with some damage from earlier in the race. He went onto the soft tyres rather than the medium tyres which the two Mercedes opted for. The Dutchman drove another great race but his collision with Raikkonen at the chicane took a bit of the shine away. He went deep into the final chicane and rather than cutting the corner and not losing any time, he tried to get back onto the track as quickly as possible but didn’t notice Raikkonen who was just to the outside of him.

He says that Raikkonen should have avoided him but I think the safer option would have been to cut straight through the chicane. It pains me to say that because if there was a wall there, you wouldn’t be able to cut the chicane but there isn’t. I’m in two minds over that incident, because I don’t like to see drivers cutting corners to keep their positions (or even gain an advantage) but Verstappen came back onto the track and did force Raikkonen off the track which isn’t allowed. The five second time penalty was probably right.

Someone who didn’t get a penalty was Kevin Magnussen despite one of the most dangerous and stupidest moves that I’ve seen in motorsport this year. Charles Leclerc moved to the right of Magnussen down the start/finish straight and Magnussen completely chopped him off like it was a video game. In my driver ratings article I mentioned that manouvers like Magnussen made are going to end up much worse than some front wing damage and a puncture, which was what happened on Sunday due to that move.

Something must be done by the FIA or else we will have consequences which could have been prevented. It’s not the first time Magnussen has been overly aggressive. In Sochi he did a similar thing and I recall he did the same thing in Baku to Pierre Gasly this year. The amazing thing is that he didn’t get a penalty. I know he ended up with a DNF but he should get at least a 10 grid place penalty in my opinion. You should not be allowed to get away with things like that, I don’t mind it if a driver moves to the inside but you have to time it correctly. Don’t do it really late and react to the moves of other drivers (especially in a straight line). Timing is everything in sport and Magnussen did not time his defensive move well at all.

We saw a huge scrap in the midfield with lots of close racing and overtaking. The Sauber, Force India, Toro Rosso, Haas, McLaren and Williams cars all had an almighty scrap that kept the race alive. Aside from Magnussen’s ridiculous move and Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll getting very close to each other, we saw some very good racing. The midfield is still as close as it was at the start of the year and with eyes moving to 2019, I thought we would see some kind of pecking order but I still can’t say who’s “best of the rest” behind the top three teams.

Expect the constructors’ championship to look a bit different to what it looks like now, come Abu Dhabi. Double points finishes will be key and with millions of pounds at stake, the drivers will battle hard.

Since this article has talked about Sebastian Vettel for much of it, I do want to make it clear what my opinion of him as.

He’s still one of the best drivers on the grid and some of the mistakes he’s made could easily have gone the other way, he would have looked like a hero had they paid off – Baku, Monza and Suzuka spring to mind. It’s been easy to criticise Vettel this year because of those mistakes but he’s taken the risk and he’s just been on the wrong side of things.

It’s still been his fault though and other drivers haven’t made those mistakes. That said, every driver has experienced a poor season or a year where things go wrong for you. Even Hamilton has a really bad year, in 2011 and Schumacher and Senna went through bad spells as well. Earlier this year, Max Verstappen had a nightmare start to the season and I remember seeing things saying “how can people say he’s the future” and “he should be dropped from Red Bull” but he’s turned it round in a big way.

Lets not forget that Vettel is still mighty over one lap, finished 7th on his debut in F1, became the youngest ever pole sitter and race winner in his first full season in 2008 and dominated Mark Webber. As long as he keeps his head down, gains momentum and confidence, then he can still become a champion with Ferrari.

It is highly, highly unlikely to happen this year with Hamilton taking his 50th Mercedes win on Sunday so Vettel will have to settle for 2nd place whilst Hamilton becomes a 5-time world champion. Will it happen in America?