Ferrari team looking to stage an upset at the Italian Grand Prix

It is the 13th race out of 20, so there is still plenty of track before the curtain comes down on the 2017 Formula One world championship.

But my impression is that this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix might be where the title fight between Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton is decided.

Not in any mathematical sense, of course. With only seven points separating the two drivers, the crown is unlikely to be clinched until the season finale in Abu Dhabi on Nov. 26.

But Monza seems to me more meaningful now than it did even a week ago, and I expect Sunday’s winner will carry with him a momentum that will be difficult to stop the rest of the way. What changed? In a word, Spa. Last weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps was as revealing as it was thrilling, with Hamilton having to sweat from the pole position all the way to the checkered flag to stay in front of his rival in red.

In the end, Hamilton steered his Mercedes across the finish line 2.358 seconds ahead of the Ferrari, and cut Vettel’s 14-point lead atop the standings by half.

It wasn’t supposed to be that hard. Some circuits suit some cars better than others, and the sweeping, high-speed nature of Spa makes it one of those tracks where the Silver Arrows were expected to dominate with their straight-line prowess. They did not. Instead, Hamilton was forced to lean on all his skills and wiles to keep Vettel at bay, and acknowledged afterward: “There was no room for error.”

Valtteri Bottas had an even tougher time in the second Mercedes, finishing fifth and ending his streak of five straight podiums that began at the Canadian Grand Prix in June.

What’s more, Bottas finished two seconds behind the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen — whose race was compromised when he was forced to serve a 10-second stopand-go penalty for a yellow-flag infraction.

So what does all this mean for this weekend? Potentially, plenty.

Look at it this way: Monza is another high-speed circuit where

Mercedes is presumed to hold the advantage, and a dominant win there would suggest that the team’s difficulties in Belgium were just a hiccup.

That would come as a great relief to Hamilton and his fans given that the remaining venues are thought to favour Mercedes on balance.

In other words, a win on enemy turf at Monza would give him every reason to feel confident that order has been restored and Mercedes will retain its advantage overall.

Preliminary results from the Italian track seem to point in this direction: Hamilton set the fastest lap time during morning practice Friday, with Bottas topping the time sheets in the afternoon.

Vettel and Raikkonen were third and fourth, respectively, in both sessions. (And by the way, Montreal-born Lance Stroll was 13th and 15th.)

But practice is just that. The real test is Sunday. If Ferrari can pull off an upset, then conventional wisdom goes out the window — and suddenly there would be cause to view Vettel as the championship favourite.

After all, a strong performance at Monza on the back of the one at Spa would suggest Ferrari can challenge Mercedes at all the remaining tracks — not just the slower ones that are known to play to Ferrari’s strengths.

Of course, the “ifs” are many. Theories, predictions, analyses and gut feelings are all subject to the many variables that can wreak havoc with a race and a season — crashes, mechanical failures, weather, drivers’ errors, miscalculations and more.

Mercedes introduced an updated engine at Spa, while Ferrari considered doing the same at Monza, but has not.

Still, Vettel sounds confident Ferrari can give its fans something to cheer about.

“I think we are on the right track,” he told reporters. “I don’t think we have a circuit we should fear, starting from now.”