Sebastian Vettel’s chances of a fifth world championship appear, on the face of it, to have vanished quicker than you can say “spark plug”.  The man who took a commanding lead early in the season, winning in Australia, Bahrain and Monaco, firmly asserting himself atop the drivers standings, is now languishing 59 points behind Lewis Hamilton with four races to go.

The summer break signified something of a shift of momentum from one driver to the other. Vettel entered August off the back of a win at the Hungaroring, and a 14 point advantage over Hamilton to go with it. Fast forward a month and Lewis takes the lead of the championship by three points, the first time he would lead the championship this year, after triumphing on Ferrari home soil. The month of September would not get any better for the Scuderia.

Singapore was just a moment of complete and utter madness, Seb’s overly ambitious defense off the start cost not only him, but the entire team the chance of a double-podium. It also cost McLaren a wall after Fernando Alonso launched a punch at one in sheer anger after being wiped out by Kimi Raikkonen’s wrecked Ferrari. What should have been a relatively simple victory descended into something of a nightmare for the German, and was exactly the miracle Lewis needed after qualifying in fifth, as he eventually extended his lead to 28 points.

Seb’s turbo pressure issue in qualifying for Malaysia was just pure bad luck. Failure to set a lap in Q1 left Vettel at the very back of the grid, but a superlative drive through the field back up to fourth, only two places behind Hamilton at race end, meant Lewis left the weekend having only extended his lead by a further six points. One week on in Japan and a spark plug issue only compounds the slump Ferrari are dealing with. The flurry of action around the back of Vettel’s car mere minutes before the formation lap in Japan instilled fear not only in to the minds of those in the Ferrari team but the sport’s fans as well. Hopes were raised when the issue was apparently fixed but Seb’s abrupt slide down the order on lap one confirmed the worst.

With Seb retiring in two of the past three races, the tantalising battle between him and Lewis that the season was poised to deliver right to the chequered flag in Abu Dhabi, looks to have been snatched away. From Italy to Japan, Vettel has scored a measly 12 points. That’s all. Hamilton meanwhile, in the same number of races, has scored 68. He’s scored that through victories, consistency and the team’s own reliability. But what’s this doing to Sebastian?

He was irked in Singapore, the crash a result of his own desperation to lead into turn one. His unnecessary and, quite frankly, bizarre shunt with Lance Stroll on the cool down lap was another moment of poor judgement (although I originally laid blame at Stroll’s door) that could have potentially cost him a gearbox penalty for Japan. It’s things like this that don’t help the situation. Lewis is riding high on a wave of his own victories and strong results but also on the fact that he knows Seb is riled and he knows time is running out for Seb to do anything about the lead Lewis has built up.

But, this is a position that Vettel has found himself in before. His first title in 2010 came after entering the final round in Abu Dhabi in third place in the standings and in 2012 was forty-four points behind Alonso before clawing back an eventual three point lead to take the title. This will, by far, be his biggest test yet but it’s a test a quadruple world champion should be well equipped to deal with. A few dodgy results for Lewis, or a DNF even will go a long way to giving Seb the mere sniff of the title he needs to pull it back.

If all else fails, I truly hope the final four races deliver some truly spectacular racing. If it has taken just thirty days to decide a season-long battle then something needs to make up for that. Some serious, proper, wheel-to-wheel racing would go a long way to seeing the season out. I’m quietly confident, this year we’ve seen some tremendous battles, and with prize money constantly up for grabs, teams and drivers aren’t going to rest on their laurels.

Image courtesy of XPB Images