F1 Qualifying Analysis: How Ferrari dug Vettel a deeper hole

Twelves months ago at Suzuka, Ferrari completed its capitulation in the race for the Formula 1 championship as a retirement for Sebastian Vettel early on all but handed the drivers’ title to Lewis Hamilton.

It capped off a dramatic turnaround in fortunes across the trio of Asian races in 2017, teaching Ferrari a hard lesson in its fight against Mercedes. It is one you would have thought the team would have learned from.

But no. A year has passed, and once again at Suzuka, Ferrari’s shortcomings have leave Vettel on the backfoot and put Hamilton within touching distance of a fifth world title that could now be clinched in Austin in two weeks’ time.

Ferrari has spent much of this weekend trailing Mercedes, with Hamilton finishing Friday’s running at Suzuka eight-tenths of a second clear of Vettel. Both Hamilton and Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff were unconvinced by the gap, but Ferrari seemed more concerned.

The gap shrunk to just one-tenth of a second in the damp FP3, although the session was something of an anomaly given the on-off rain. Come Q1, Mercedes was clearly ahead, with its advantage in Q2 being such that both Hamilton and teammate Valtteri Bottas went faster on Soft tyres than Ferrari did on Supersofts.

An old theory in F1 has been that if you’re on the back foot, the arrival of rain can only be a good thing as it gives you a chance to reel in your rivals. Alas, when the shower hit at the end of Q2 and forced the midfield runners going for a second run to abandon their laps, it seemed to only be a good thing for Ferrari. Much as Mercedes benefitted from rain in Hungary to snatch pole away, could it help Ferrari get back in the fight at Suzuka?

It instead sparked a downfall that has left Vettel in an increasingly precarious position in his championship fight against Hamilton, the gap already standing at 50 points heading into Sunday’s race.

Concerned by the rain that had fallen in the closing stages of Q2 which had made the track too wet for slicks, and with more rain forecast on the radar, Ferrari decided to stick both Vettel and teammate Kimi Raikkonen on intermediates for the start of Q3. However, the air temperature at Suzuka has been warm all weekend, hitting 26ºC in qualifying, meaning that a lot of the fine rain that was coming down was either evaporating instantly or, with cars running around, taking very little time to dry out on-track.

The light for Q3 went green. Ferrari trundled out on Intermediates, followed by the rest of the top 10 runners - all of whom had fitted slicks.

Vettel was quick to radio Ferrari and tell them it was too dry out on-track, prompting Ferrari to ready the Supersoft tyres hindsight dictated it should have used in the first place. But this put the team a couple of minutes behind the rest of the pack - which, with rain incoming, left it in a precarious position.

Mercedes had already put in its lap times, led by Hamilton in P1 and Valtteri Bottas second by almost three-tenths. Max Verstappen sat third for Red Bull, a further second behind, but even he looked out of reach for Ferrari at this point. It was a race against time to get the laps in before the rain grew too heavy.

And yet again, the pressure tolled for Vettel, as it seemed to in Baku, France, Austria, Germany, Monza and Singapore. Raikkonen was able to wrestle his Ferrari around through the fine spray to go P4, half a second off Verstappen, but Vettel erred at Spoon, running off the track to leave himself four seconds off the pace and all the way down in P9.

The Q3 runners all pitted as normal to make the switch to a second set of Supersofts for the final runs, but the track by this point had become too wet. Hamilton was the only driver to do an even half-decent Sector 1 time, two seconds slower than his regular pace, while Vettel’s refusal to back down saw him run off the road at Degner 2 and almost put his Ferrari in the wall. It was too late, though: ninth on the grid was his.

It was the latest submission to a growing catalogue of errors at Ferrari, and one that team boss Maurizio Arrivabene seemed particularly upset. Vettel was more reserved, even if he was disgruntled during his post-qualifying press briefing, deadpanning his way through. Asked what happened, he just said: “I think you saw, no? That’s what happened.”

“I think obviously why we took the decision, I mean five or six or seven minutes later it started to rain quite heavily so there was something in the air,” Vettel added.

“I think we expected that there was more rain coming and obviously it didn’t. So then it was the wrong decision.

“But when the conditions are like this then obviously you either get it right or you get it wrong. I’m not blaming anybody.”

Vettel was also asked if the growing number of mistakes were setting in because he was dropping back in the title race. “No, no,” was his answer. “When it’s like this, everything becomes a bit of a gamble, so obviously for us it didn’t work out today.”

Vettel will start the race eighth tomorrow, gaining a place thanks to Esteban Ocon’s grid penalty. The Toro Rosso pair of Pierre Gasly and Brendon Hartley should be easy to pick off, as should Haas driver Romain Grosjean. You’d then imagine Raikkonen wouldn’t put up much of a fight either.

But the top three may be out of reach for Vettel even by the time he gets back up to fourth place. He doesn’t even have a strategy advantage over the Mercedes drivers - who got through Q2 on Softs - that could play into his favour. A one-stop race is also on the cards, meaning that barring something out of the ordinary, it is hard to see the German clawing his way back into this one.

Should Vettel finish the race P4 with Hamilton winning, the gap would grow to 63 points with four races to go - meaning a repeat result in Austin later this month would see the title be settled there.

This episode may act as another nail in the coffin crafted for Vettel’s title hopes, but it also sheds light on the true difference between Mercedes and Ferrari. Whereas Ferrari may have had the quickest car for much of the season, Mercedes has still been the better team. At times when it was on the back foot, it made the most of the opportunities that arrived and took full advantage of them.

Ferrari, meanwhile, has fluffed its lines once again, only deepening the plight Vettel in particular finds himself facing ahead of Sunday’s race at Suzuka.