Singapore GP: Ferrari Implode Yet Again As Hamilton Extends Championship Lead

Sebastian Vettel said "Ferrari’s biggest enemy is Ferrari" ahead of the Sunday’s Singapore Grand Prix after admitting the team and the title challenging German and the Italian team had no one to blame but themselves as they threw away a chance to beat Mercedes at the Marina Bay street circuit, a track that was supposed to suite Ferrari mopre than Mercedes.

Lewis Hamilton blitzed the rest of the field in qualifying on Saturday to take pole position, and then drove a composed race to take his seventh win of the season ahead of Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen and Vettel, who finished over 20 seconds behind the race winner.

It is widely accepted in the F1 paddock that Ferrari have the best car on the grid, but they are still struggling to match Mercedes’ consistency. A string of strategy and driver errors during the course of the season see them trailing in both the Constructors’ and Drivers’ championship.

But the Italian team came into the Singapore Grand Prix with the hope of reducing the deficit on a track that favored their car over Mercedes. It was not to be as Hamilton and Mercedes showed they have made improvements to their car and Ferrari showed they were still prone to making poor strategy errors.

Ferrari again had themselves to blame after poor calls in qualifying and the race cost them a chance to reduce the deficit to the reigning champions, who now look favorite to win their fifth consecutive Constructors’ and Drivers’ titles.

Vettel, who started the race in third place, looked to have made a good start after he overtook Verstappen on the opening lap to be right behind Hamilton. But after sticking with the Mercedes driver initially he was unable to maintain the pace of the leader and Ferrari decided it was better to pit and try the undercut.

Hamilton pitted immediately on the lap after and came out ahead as the German’s Ferrari was stuck behind Sergio Perez’s Force India. The effect of that seemed more catastrophic for Ferrari as Red Bull pitted Verstappen a few laps later and got him out just ahead of Vettel putting him back in third place.

However, the strategy error was not so much in the timing of the pitstop, but their decision to go onto the ultra-soft tires rather than the more durable soft-tires which both Hamilton and Verstappen had opted for. They latter two were confortable until the end of the race, but Vettel had to nurse his tires after deciding he would lose out further by making another stop.

The four-time world champion questioned Ferrari’s strategy in the immediate aftermath of the race, but later defended his team by suggesting it was a planned decision that did not work out on the day.

"We tried to be aggressive in the beginning and obviously it didn't work out," Vettel said after the race, as per Sky Sports. "With the way we raced today we didn't have a chance. I said before the weekend we could only beat ourselves and I think today we didn't get everything out of our package."

"The decisions we took in the race were to try and be aggressive. If it it works then it's great; today it didn't work." Vettel added. "It obviously didn't work by quite a bit, so we have to look into that. But we saw something and that's why we go for it.”

"If it doesn't work it's always easy to criticise, but I will always defend what we did. But overall we had a very strong package, both Kimi and myself looked very competitive throughout practice, but in the end if you look at the race result we finished third and fifth. Like yesterday, probably not where the speed of our car belongs.

"So that's what I meant by saying we didn't get everything out of ourselves,” the Ferrari driver said explaining his earlier comments during the post-race press conference.

Vettel is now 40 points behind Hamilton in the race for the 2018 Drivers’ title and that makes him an outsider now with the Briton the clear favorite. The German also admitted Ferrari can learn one or two things from their rivals after being convincingly beaten in Singapore.

The next race on the calendar is at the Sochi Autodrom in Russia with the first practice session getting underway Sept. 28 with the race on Sept. 30.