Why there's no reason to expect a Ferrari fightback

Sebastian Vettel claimed he was not concerned by rain at Austin because "If our car's quick, it will be quick when it's dry and when it's wet". That's bad news for Ferrari, which can no longer beat runaway F1 title favourite Mercedes in a straight fight.

Edd Straw Oct 19, 2018, 10:24 PM

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Lewis Hamilton is right to warn that you can never be complacent when it comes to sealing a world championship. He stands on the brink of being crowned for a fifth time, but knows better than anyone that you can't relax until you know it's signed, sealed and delivered - just look at what happened in 2007, when his seemingly impregnable lead evaporated in China and Brazil.

Sebastian Vettel has no chance of winning the world championship - it would be far more improbable even than Kimi Raikkonen's '07 turnaround - and he'd be on the back foot even if he wasn't 67 points behind. While the terrible weather that hit Austin during Friday practice means we had no chance to evaluate the relative performance of Mercedes and Ferrari on the day, the previous three weekends have proved emphatically that the silvers cars are the faster by some margin.