Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton have for a long time been regarded as modern day F1's equivalent of Hollywood icons Robert De Niro and Al Pacino.
Just as it is with these two celebrated movie stars, Seb and Lewis are synonymous with each other. Both made their Formula 1 debuts within a few months of each other; both were groomed for F1 success from their teenage years; both encouraged by their respective parental teams. In their own individual way, they both made a splash when the eventually arrived in the F1 paddock and in a short time they both built formidable reputations.
Both have also, for whatever reason, had their spells of what is euphemistically referred to as dividing opinion. But at the end of the day both have became habitual race winners, multiple world champions and, when they have the requisite machinery at their disposal, the form driver of the day to beat. It’s just that until now, they’ve never both had that last essential ingredient simultaneously!
Seven of the last nine drivers’ titles (and six of the last seven) have been claimed by one or other of them. Yet it’s been no Ayrton Senna-Alain Prost type rivalry – as to bring it back to De Niro and Pacino they have for an interminable stretch of time somehow avoided a direct head-to-head meeting. This is despite a few near misses – just as De Niro and Pacino both starred in The Godfather Part II and thanks to series of shifts between different periods of history never appeared in the same scene. Just possibly either 2010 and 2012 may have boiled down to Vettel vs. Hamilton title battles but didn’t quite work out that way…
Seven of the last nine drivers’ titles have been claimed by either Vettel or Hamilton. Yet to bring it back to De Niro and Pacino they have for an interminable stretch of time somehow avoided a direct head-to-head meeting.
This year though, judging by last week’s Australian Grand Prix season-opener it looks a lot like we’ll have F1's equivalent of Heat's sit-down scene in the diner. At last, after years of anticipation, will these two finally have a direct face-off season?
F1, after three seasons of solid Mercedes dominance, is crying out for some kind, nay any kind, of outside challenge to the Silver Arrows squad. At last, the fight that the fans have been demanding for years, now finally appears to be the one that they will get! This will be something to relish, not only down to the quality of the protagonists but also that it falls into the industrious vs. instinctive typology that F1 seems to specialise in. And then some too…
“It could be Stewart-Rindt all over again,” predicted Peter Windsor when a Seb-Lewis match-up was anticipated early last year. “Or Senna-Prost. Or Schumacher-Hakkinen. It could be all these and more. It could be a rivalry to mark the end of days.
"Hamilton v Vettel, Mercedes v Ferrari, Silver v Red, England v Germany". This match-up has got it all, small wonder we’re all excited.
Yes, in Melbourne last Sunday the Vettel piloted Ferrari faced the usually-haughty Mercedes down and won, even after allowing Lewis the luxury of leading from the line. There was no stunning launch from the start, no rain shower, safety car or any other unusual intervention (beyond Lewis getting held up for a very short time by Max Verstappen) to explain away the outcome. It was simply – after rubbing our eyes to make sure we weren’t imagining things – a matter of ground speed. The red team’s pre-season hype was justified after all.
In Melbourne last Sunday the Vettel piloted Ferrari faced the usually-haughty Mercedes down and won. It simply was a matter of ground speed. The red team’s pre-season hype was justified after all.
Granted many focussed on the Brackley team’s strategy and the decision to pit Lewis early, indirectly via which Seb was able to claim the lead he was not to lose. But such points are moot – as plenty have pointed out the bottom line is the Ferrari-Vettel combination was simply the quicker in race trim; certainly much better on the tyres (and demonstrated as much on two different compounds). Even with Lewis staying out to maintain track position, as some have advocated, simply would have left him as easy prey for a Ferrari undercut.
Unsurprisingly Ferrari’s Chief Engineer Jock Clear confirmed after the race that this was precisely Ferrari’s Plan “A”. Even Lewis’s biggest supporter, Niki Lauda, confirmed that the alternative strategy options wouldn’t have altered the race outcome one iota!
And thus for the first time in a long time, something other than a Mercedes is leading both the F1 world championships. For arguably the first time in about as long – aside from the odd outlier of Singapore in 2015 – Mercedes was defeated in a race by pure pace rather than peculiarity. For the first time in a long time we have appear to have a multi-team fight for the world title. Again, small wonder we’re all excited.
But with it comes the associated question. While we know four-time champion Vettel is well capable of keeping up the pace, can his Ferrari team do likewise? Or is it the latest of the Scuderia’s several flashes in the pan?
No matter what they [Ferrari] were doing, which tyre they were on, long runs, short runs, it looked good all the time. So we must have seen a variety of fuel loads and different programmes they were working – Glenn Freeman
It seems undeniable that much is different this time, certainly compared with this time last season. Twelve months ago in Albert Park Vettel qualified eight tenths off Hamilton’s pole mark (albeit amid the crazy short-lived alternative format); this time the gap was three tenths. In Melbourne last weekend Ferrari’s race strategy was ice-cool and utterly effective – something that it most certainly wasn’t for most of 2016. And while both last year’s and this year’s testing were superficially encouraging for Ferrari, the clear view around the paddock (including within the Mercedes camp) was that this time the Scuderia’s form was much more tangible.
“No matter what they were doing, which tyre they were on, long runs, short runs, it looked good all the time,” explained Autosport’s Glenn Freeman of the Ferrari in pre-season running. “So we must have seen a variety of fuel loads and different programmes they were working.
“The big thing actually is how Ferrari handled testing last year, they were constantly throwing soft tyres at it, constantly doing these short runs. We got our hopes up; everyone got their hopes up.
“But comparing to how they approached it this year it now makes the 2016 approach look almost like they were trying to kid themselves they were in the game – there was none of that this time…the approach of last year was gone.”
Ferrari need to make hay now, they have to get some early wins on the board because I still have question marks about their technical team, I think their development rate will drop off relative to Mercedes and Red Bull – Tom Clarkson
While at the same moment, for the first time probably since its dominant run started in 2014, there were minor blemishes visible on Merc’s silver armour, with Paddy Lowe and Nico Rosberg leaving.
But there were also in advance words of warning. “Ferrari need to make hay now, they have to get some early wins on the board,” said the BBC’s Tom Clarkson on the eve of Melbourne practice running. “Because I still have question marks about their technical team, they’ve lost James Allison [to Mercedes] and therefore I think their development rate will drop off relative to Mercedes and Red Bull as the year goes on.
“They ousted James Allison, who is recognised in this post-Adrian Newey era as one of the top, top technical guys… the result of that they have now actually promoted an engine guy [Mattia Binotto] to Technical Director, who is now in charge of the chassis, and when you speak to both engine and chassis divisions it’s harder for an engine guy to get on top of a chassis than it is a chassis guy to go and become an engine guy.”
It can’t harm Mercedes that the very same Allison is now in its own camp. It helps to know thy enemy as well as thy self.
Mercedes’s in-year development record meanwhile is a good one generally, and this is perhaps particularly noteworthy as it’s tended in recent years to be ahead and therefore has less obvious development potential to move into. More specifically the flipside of the Mercedes Melbourne upheaval is that things will improve as the likes of the afore-mentioned Allison get their feet under their desks. Most broadly of all Mercedes has no intention of ceding defeat.
Let’s see if this was circuit dependent. They’ve [Ferrari] always gone well here in Australia – Ted Kravitz
Then there is the small issue that the Albert Park circuit’s on-track challenges are rather peculiar and unique to the season, and that Ferrari might just be particularly good at meeting them. “Let’s see if this was circuit dependent,” added Sky’s Ted Kravitz after the race of Melbourne’s dramatic goings-on. “They’ve [Ferrari] always gone well here in Australia. You get a sense that there’s some engineer in Ferrari that has the key secret set-up sheet of [just] how to win at Albert Park if you have a half-decent car and a chance to do it.”
It’s worth reflecting indeed that without the red flag in last year’s Melbourne race, or even with it but without Ferrari’s subsequent dud strategy call, we’d likely 12 months ago also have been walking away from Australia with a stunning Ferrari win apparently on pure race pace, and the associated Mercedes ignominy. We’d probably be having similar conversations, and speculations, just as we are now. And we all know what happened next.
There are other considerations too. Seb in Melbourne was still well off Lewis in qualifying and it appears that Mercedes can still crank up its power unit more than Ferrari, and he only just pipped the other W08 of Valtteri Bottas (he only just held him off at the start too). And one imagines that the Finn getting ahead of the Ferrari in the first stint likely would have tilted the race Lewis’s way. If Bottas can regularly provide rear-gunner services in races to come, it could be vital – especially if overtaking is now as hard as many say it is. And if the more durable Pirellis now give only one chance per race to pass on strategy…
Thus for all of Melbourne’s encouragement for Ferrari the work has only just begun. But perhaps such considerations can wait. For right now in F1 we have something unusual – unusual for recent times anyway – a sense of more than one credible competitor team at the sharp end. And a related sense of really not knowing who’ll prevail in the next race. Nor indeed of who will ultimately take the title crown. For now, and for the first time in too long, we have some competition in F1. That we’ll take, something to be content about at last.
