Arrivabene: Vettel will win title with Ferrari sooner or later

Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene is confident Sebastian Vettel will win a Formula 1 world championship with the Scuderia “sooner or later”.

Vettel’s 2018 title hopes have all but ended with rival Lewis Hamilton on the brink of claiming the world championship. Hamilton can seal his fifth drivers’ title at this weekend’s United States Grand Prix if he records a fifth successive victory at the Circuit of the Americas, providing Vettel finishes third or lower.

The German’s aspirations of ending Ferrari’s barren run without title success have been curtailed following a series of mistakes and missed opportunities that have left him 67 points adrift of Hamilton despite looking favourite for the championship earlier in the season.

But Arrivabene has called on Ferrari to challenge the impossible and will not give up on thoughts of the Italian squad winning a first championship since 2008 until it is mathematically out of reach.

"It has become a mission impossible, but it's not over," Arrivabene told Gazzetta dello Sport. "And I am sure that sooner or later Sebastian Vettel will win the world championship at the wheel of Ferrari."

Arrivabene also compared Vettel to seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher, adding the four-time champion reminds him of Vettel's fellow countryman.

"I think he has something similar to Schumacher: he is German, but very Italian and has been close to Maranello from an early age."

F1 sporting boss Ross Brawn, who was a key figurehead in Ferrari’s dominance of the sport with Schumacher during the early 2000s, believes Hamilton is now the man most likely to go on to beat the German’s all-time record.

"I never thought I would be able to say it, but Hamilton really is the one who could beat Michael Schumacher's records," Brawn said.

"He's got everything under control. The quality that unites him with Michael and the great guys is that he knows how to win races that he should lose."