After leading the Championship standings for so long, it seems as if Fernando Alonso is going to miss out on his third World Drivers Championship, and instead Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel looks set to win his third consecutive title. Holding a 13 point advantage going into the final race of the season, and with arguably the fastest car on the grid, it quite simply is Vettel’s title to lose.
Stranger things have happened in F1, but barring any major incident it seems unlikely that Alonso can claw back the deficit at Interlagos. Once more Adrian Newey has designed a phenomenal car, as updates over the course of the season have propelled the Red Bull ahead of its rivals. Now the destiny of the title is in Vettel’s hands, finish in the top four in Brazil and regardless of what magic Alonso manages to conjure up, it will be in vain. In reality you’d expect Vettel to be able to achieve that, and only some sort of accident, mechanical failure or penalty can really prevent him from achieving the fantastic feat of three consecutive WDCs.
To be fair to Vettel, he has been in imperious form in the closing stages of the season, but has been aided by having the quickest car. When him and Alonso had similar machinery, it was the Spaniard who possessed the upper hand, as Vettel struggled to beat his Australian teammate Mark Webber let alone the sensational Spaniard. His tribulations have caused sceptics to argue that the wrong man will be the winner of the title, and only by beating one of the recognised top drivers as teammates, such as Alonso or Lewis Hamilton, will Vettel be able to establish himself as one of the sport’s greatest drivers of all time.
Quite simply, regardless of the ability of the driver, if the car is not up to scratch then you have no chance of attaining major success. To win a WDC, then you need a combination of a top car and a hefty chunk of ability. For the last three seasons Vettel has had both, and enjoyed magnificent success. Yet when everything has not been perfect, then slight strains have been noticeable, and it still remains to be seen how Vettel would cope if he had a poor car like Alonso did at the start of the season. Would he have been able to drag the performances out of the Ferrari that the Spaniard did? That is a hypothetical question however, what matters is that Vettel holds a 13 point lead going into the final race, and pardon the pun, is well and truly in the driving seat to claim a third WDC.
This weekend will also signal the end of Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren career, and if the Brit can produce a performance to match the last couple of races, in which he has won one and retired from a dominant lead in the other, then he has to be regarded as the favourite to end the season on a high. Mechanical issues, poor tactical decisions, and the occasional driver error have prevented Hamilton from being a key protagonist in the hunt for the WDC, a fact that will be even more frustrating by the virtue that the McLaren has been the best car over the course of the season.
If Hamilton could have maintained the consistency of Alonso or Lotus’ Kimi Raikkonen, then we would probably be talking of him as this year’s title winner. Yet that hasn’t been the case, and Hamilton’s McLaren career has only produced one title, a fact which will remain as a frustration throughout his career. A change of surrounding may help to unleash his obvious talent in a more potent and rewarding form, but it remains to be seen whether Mercedes can provide him with a car which can challenge for race wins next year.
That’s for the future though; first the fate of this year’s WDC needs to be decided. The advantage lies with Red Bull, and the title is Vettel’s to lose, but you never know stranger things have happened in sport…