If Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel is not quite in the last-chance saloon at this weekend’s Russian Grand Prix, he is on the edge of town riding a prancing horse that has developed a limp. Forty points behind championship leader Lewis Hamilton, Vettel has been beaten in three of the last four races, all of which he could – perhaps should – have won had he and his team put together a perfect weekend. Instead, the story of Ferrari’s 2018 season has been one of not achieving perfection anywhere near often enough. The result is Hamilton has an increasingly insurmountable-looking advantage in the title race, despite his Mercedes being – for most of the season – only the second fastest car on the grid. If Vettel does fail to overhaul Hamilton in the remaining six races, it will be 10 years since Ferrari won a world championship title and the fourth time in that period that a golden opportunity slipped away. It is all so different from the first years of this century, which began with Ferrari in utterly dominant form, as the most ruthlessly successful F1 team ever constructed helped Michael Schumacher deliver five consecutive world titles.
Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari’s intended replacement as the team’s lead driver, benefited from the momentum of that success. Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne, the architects of Ferrari’s engineering excellence, left at the end of 2006, but the 2007 car was effectively designed on their watch. In it, the Finn ultimately secured what remains Ferrari’s last driver’s title, by just one point from McLaren drivers Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, who tied on points. Ferrari’s car remained absolutely competitive into 2008, by which time Jean Todt had left his position as team boss and handed over to Stefano Domenicali. This time, Felipe Massa led Ferrari’s charge, and the Brazilian missed out only at the last corner of the final race, as Hamilton took the fifth position he needed to clinch the title in a chaotic dry-wet Brazilian Grand Prix.
But by 2009, the momentum of the Brawn-Byrne-Todt-Schumacher years was fading, and the car was uncompetitive, Raikkonen taking only a single victory before being paid to leave the team at the end of the year so he could be replaced by Alonso.
