Brawn: 'Vettel is not in his best form'

Sebastian Vettel had a great opportunity to delay the coronation of his rival Lewis Hamilton last weekend at the US GP, but the Team Ferrari finally had to rely on Kimi Räikkönen after another difficult race from the German.

After receiving a penalty of 3 places on the grid for not respecting the red flag in practice, Sebastian Vettel hung on in the first lap with Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull) and was only able to save a 4th place.

Ross Brawn, Motorsports Director of Liberty Media, believes that the four-time world champion is going through a difficult period where he is struggling to exploit his potential.

“It was another opportunity to close the gap in the title fight, especially when you see what Räikkönen was able to do with the same car, comments the former technical director. I don't want to put Vettel in the dock, but these repeated incidents cannot be a coincidence. Rather, they indicate that he is not in the best form currently. »

Ross Brawn regrets not having a more competitive end to the season with the close performances between the Ferrari SF71H and the Mercedes W09.

“It’s a shame because Maranello was able to provide him with a really competitive entry car., adds Ross Brawn. Mercedes had never had to face such competition since the start of the hybrid era and had never had to go so far in the development race. This is due to the men and women who work at Ferrari and obviously the drivers. Title hopes are now diminishing at Maranello, but the most important thing is to see how to help Vettel exploit all his talent. You don't become a quadruple world champion by chance and he hasn't forgotten how to win. In a discipline as complicated as F1, we only achieve our goals if we put all the pieces together. Everything is compromised otherwise. »

If Sebastian Vettel has won 5 times this year, the Ferrari driver has not been on the highest step of the podium since the Belgian GP.

Discover the analysis of the US GP carried out by our special correspondents in issue 2188 of AUTOhebdo, available now in digital version on all platforms, and on newsstands this Wednesday.