MENTAL BLOCK
Has Hamilton got inside Vettel’s head?
IT IS 301 days since Sebastian Vettel last won a race. And there was no sign of a reprieve as he was once again driven out of sight by Lewis Hamilton’s decisive track-record lap. While Hamilton took pole for the 86th time, a figure that boggles the mind when you consider Sir Jackie Stewart started only 99 races, Vettel was seventh in qualifying for today’s French Grand Prix. The German, nearly a second and a half off the pace, is stuck in the Briton’s shade and it is playing hell with his mind.
Valtteri Bottas was second quickest, completing a Mercedes lockout, Charles Leclerc third for Ferrari, Max Verstappen fourth for Red Bull and 19-year-old Brit Lando Norris fifth for McLaren.
Hamilton is not a serious historian of the sport, though he appreciates his own place in the pantheon and respects the legends, but Vettel is. He can reel off the numbers that count, the records he once turned to rewriting as he became the youngest single, double, triple, quadruple world champion in a streak between
2010 and 2013 when Red Bull ruled. He might tell you, for example, he is third in the all-time list of race winners with 52, behind Hamilton, 78, and Michael Schumacher, 91. He achieved more poles in a season, 15 in 2011, than anyone ever. It was not meant to be Hamilton, but him, edging up to every summit worth conquering. Bernie Ecclestone, Vettel’s close friend, said: ‘Sebastian is very quick but seems to have a problem when he is right up against Lewis. It’s in his head. He is so desperate to win another world title and for Lewis not to win another. Side by side with him, he has a mental block.’ The signs of tension are there in the mistakes Vettel has made and his reactions to them. There was Baku in 2017 when he drove into Hamilton. In the last year alone he has spun or run off at Germany, Italy, America, Japan, Bahrain and Canada. Three of those incidents involved Hamilton. The last mistake, in Montreal a fortnight ago, was one such occasion.
Under pressure from the rival he now trails by 62 points, he went wide on to the grass and re-emerged on track in an unsafe manner. He was handed a five-second penalty and lost the victory to Hamilton.
He was unhinged as he expressed his anger calling stewards ‘blind’ over the radio and moving the first and second place markers in parc ferme.
‘He acted like a petulant child,’ said John Watson, who raced in a more dangerous age, in the 70s and 80s. ‘He should’ve been charged with bringing the sport into disrepute. If Ross Brawn was still at Ferrari he would have been on to him like a rat up a drainpipe.’
Ferrari went through the charade of reviewing the decision, a process that required significant evidence.
Instead, they cited Sky Sports analysis by Karun Chandhok, the former HRT driver. Hamilton said: ‘I heard they were focusing (on the review). I’d have focused on developing the car. When I heard that Karun’s video was the new evidence, I was pretty relaxed.’
Vettel is, in fact, a cheerful character when he is not imploding.
He has always been happy to share a joke since entering Formula One.
He enjoys English comedy and rhyming slang. One evening in the BMW hospitality area 12 years ago, he came over to tell me and the man from the Daily Express he had found a new word he liked: kerfuffle. Which, ironically, might be applied to the Montreal flashpoint.
He is old fashioned in many aspects: he does not use social media, he abhors selfies, he uses a fountain pen and paper.
Private to the point of invisibility, he does not even confirm that he has two children. Nor did he announce that a few days after his Montreal meltdown he married his childhood sweetheart Hanna.
Ecclestone believes Vettel might be nearing the finishing line, aged 32. ‘Sebastian could stop and I don’t think it would take a lot for that to happen,’ said the ex-F1 supremo. ‘If something upsets him, he’ll leave. He’d put his wife and children first.’
Vettel seems to have fallen out of love with Formula One, though his £36million-a-year salary is a nice
little sweetener. He’s signed up until the end of next season. He could quit then or throw it all in at the end of this year if the punishment at Ferrari becomes unbearable.
Christian Horner, his boss during the halcyon Red Bull days, said: ‘Yes, we had a lot of success but it was also fun along the way. It looks as though he has lost his enjoyment.
‘He was phenomenal for us but, at Ferrari, he seems to feel a lot of responsibility. It’s a pressure cooker.’