I’ve spent the last few days in a haze.
I’m a fan of Sebastian Vettel. His driving, candid and funny interviews, his normal guy persona, and his amazing emoting when he succeeds, all combine to keep me a supporter.
The race on Sunday was not ideal. The rain came and the race started with most cars on intermediate wet tires like Seb. With a weak start, in the first few seconds, Sebastian sabotaged his own race by driving Verstappen into a Ferrari sandwich that led straight to the inevitable collisions.
I think I understand what Sebastian was doing; he was trying to keep from having a lunging Verstappen on the inside of turn 1 but that didn’t work as expected. Instead Vettel’s move caused him, Verstappen, Raikkonen, and Alonso, to all suffer catastrophic issues ending their respective races.
I don’t think Vettel would have made the same move on Hamilton because I think he would have kept to the outside of turn 1 trusting that Hamilton wouldn’t come up the inside as aggressively as Verstappen has been proven to do. This is not a knock on Verstappen; he is successful at his maneuvers far more frequently than a failure at them and is different enough in style and skill from other drivers to inspire alternate tactics during the race.
In the end it did not matter what Seb was trying to do, the result was a failure. DNF for him and others.
I remember being in denial, that the race might restart but of course that would not happen.
My hopes for a Sebastian Vettel victory on Sunday were dashed mere seconds after the start and my growing anticipation for another Sebastian Vettel World Driver title subsided. This made me sad for a few days until I remembered where Sebastian was after Singapore in 2010 during his first driver title. He was almost as far behind then as he is now.
After Signapore 2010, with only 4 races remaining Seb was in third place in the title hunt behind his teammate Mark Webber by 21 points, and behind Fernando Alonso by 25 points. Seb won 3 of the last 4 races and eked out a 4 point lead to capture his first of 4 consecutive titles!
I may have spent the last few days in a haze but I’m out of it now and I’m expecting that Sebastian will put his disastrous performance in Singapore behind him and I look forward to watching Seb defeat Hamilton’s 28 point lead over the next 6 races. Buona fortuna, Seb!