It’s 301 days since Sebastian Vettel last won a race. And there was no sign of a reprieve under a fierce sun 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 in his career, a figure that boggles the mind when you consider Sir Jackie Stewart started only 99 races, Vettel was a miserable seventh in qualifying for the French Grand Prix. The German, who was 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.
Sebastian Vettel has struggled in recent months for Ferrari as he looks on at Paul Ricard
Vettel will start Sunday's French Grand Prix from seventh after a poor qualifying session
Hamilton is not a serious historian of the sport, though he appreciates his own place in the pantheon and respects the legends whose names echo through the eras, but Vettel assuredly is. He can reel off the numbers that count, the records he once turned his face to rewriting while he became the youngest single, double, triple, quadruple world champion in a streak between 2010 and 2013 when Red Bull ruled the track.
He might tell you, for example, that he is third in the all-time list of race winners with 52, behind only Hamilton, 78, and Michael Schumacher, 91. He achieved more poles in a single season, 15 in 2011, than anyone else ever.
It was not meant to be Hamilton, but him, edging up to every summit worth conquering.
The four-time world champion appears to have lost his appetite for F1 in recent times
Vettel arrived in France with a wedding ring, having married after the Canadian Grand Prix
Bernie Ecclestone, Vettel’s close friend, said: ‘Sebastian is very quick but he seems to have a problem when he is right up against Lewis. I think it’s in his head.
‘He is so desperate to win another world championship 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 – the lowest act of his career. 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.
It has been over 300 days since his last win that came at the 2018 Belgian Grand Prix
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, or so the stewards decided. He was handed a five-second penalty and lost the victory to Hamilton. Cue massive Vettel displeasure.
He was unhinged as he expressed his anger over the radio, calling the stewards ‘blind’ and moving the first and second place markers in parc
