It’s now more a question of when, rather than if, Sebastian Vettel will win a fourth straight Formula One championship.
Before the midseason break a few weeks ago, there was talk that the Red Bull driver could be still be caught by Ferrari rival Fernando Alonso and a resurgent lewis Hamilton of Mercedes.
Two races and two wins later, Vettel is so far ahead of both that the guessing game now is at which of the seven remaining races he will wrap up the title. He, however, refuses to look too far ahead. “I don’t go for predictions. I go for facts, and fact is that mathematically a number of scenarios are still possible,” Vettel said.
Vettel’s impressive win at Sunday’s Italian GP, where he overcame a difficult start and late gearbox trouble, moved him 53 points ahead of Alonso and 81 clear of Hamilton.
Only a monumental collapse by Vettel will give either a chance of catching him. Given that the German has won three of the past four races, that seems increasingly unlikely.
Alonso seemed to be clinging for fading hope, saying “in a way, it was exactly the same last year.”
But Red Bull is more reliable than Ferrari was last season, and much faster. Also, Vettel has managed at least a podium in six of the past seven races — and only failed to score points in five of the past 51. The race in Singapore in two weeks is more likely to have a bearing on who finishes the championship in second and third.
Alonso is 28 points ahead of Hamilton, who has failed to recapture the form that saw him win the Hungarian GP, and only 11 points separate Hamilton, Kimi Raikkonen and Mark Webber in sixth.
Ferrari still has to decide its driver lineup for next season, however, with Felipe Massa under pressure to keep his seat, although his aggressive driving on Sunday will have boosted his chances.
Hamilton also needs to bounce back from what he called “a disaster of a weekend.” It started with 12th place in qualifying — by far his worst of the season — and a slow puncture sustained in the first chicane, coupled with a failing race radio. “I didn’t know what ... was going on,” Hamilton said. “You don’t know what’s happening in the race, I didn’t know when to stop, when to push, when not to push, when to switch my settings.”
Hamilton has settled in well in his first season since switching to Mercedes from Mclaren, and he was magnanimous enough to apologize to his team after his poor qualifying session. Prior to Monza, he had secured four straight pole positions.
Di Resta reprimanded
Sahara Force India’s Paul di Resta has been handed a reprimand by the stewards for colliding with lotus driver Romain Grosjeans on the first lap of the Italian Grand Prix, here on Sunday.
The Scot’s race ended with the crash but Grosjean survived to finish eighth. Di Resta’s teammate Adrian Sutil finished 16th after retiring his car in the last lap due to brake issues.
Since di Resta accepted responsibility for the incident, the stewards recognised the fact that he had tried to take evasive action. “The driver made an attempt to avoid the collision (when he saw the cars in front braking earlier) by trying to drive between cars #8 and #15, but in doing so collided with car #8,” said the official steward’s report.
Di Resta said it was a weekend to forget. “I just got caught out going into the second chicane because the cars ahead of me got backed up – I guess they were reacting to the tussle going on ahead of them. I locked both fronts trying to stop the car and ended up hitting Grosjean. Unfortunately it was too late to take avoiding action. Now we need to look forward to Singapore and put this one behind us,” he said.