The mounting woe that's killed Vettel's title hopes

Sebastian Vettel's Formula 1 title hopes all but evaporated in the Japanese Grand Prix, as poor reliability ruined Ferrari's prospects of properly carrying the fight to Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes for the second race in a row.

If Vettel was already clinging on by his fingertips coming into Suzuka, he is surely now only something akin to a fingernail breakage away from certain doom in F1's title race.

Ferrari knew Vettel was in serious trouble the moment he left the garage to take his place on the grid. A broken spark plug caused Vettel's engine - only one race old following his troubles in Malaysia, remember - to lapse onto five cylinders.

Ferrari said there was not enough time left before the start of the race to swap the plug, supplied by Japanese manufacturer NGK, for a new one, so Vettel's fate was sealed.

The Scuderia felt sure Vettel would have beaten Hamilton in Japan, given he started well enough on five cylinders to make it to the first corner still comfortably in second place. Ferrari reckoned Vettel's launch was better than Hamilton's, and good enough that Vettel would have taken the lead had full power been available.

From there, given Mercedes' qualifying advantage is not so apparent in races, or in the hotter conditions that were prevalent at Suzuka on race day, the grand prix would have been Vettel's to lose.

But within four laps it was all over, Vettel dropping like a stone thanks to his lack of power. Max Verstappen passed him with a Kamui Kobayashi-esque lunge on the brakes into the hairpin on lap one, Vettel was overtaken by three cars at once on the pit straight at the start of lap two, then demoted further by Sergio Perez's Force India shortly after the safety car restart on lap four.

Realising this was a lost cause, Ferrari threw in the towel, calling Vettel into the pits to retire. And with that, another potential 25 points were lost, as was Vettel's last realistic chance of denying Hamilton this championship.

It would be easy to look at this recent sequence of events and determine that poor Ferrari reliability has cost Vettel the title, but it goes much further than that.

Had Vettel not started poorly and had his rear tyre punctured by Verstappen in June's Canadian GP, he would have finished second in that race instead of fourth, gaining six points back on Hamilton. Had he not had his moment of madness behind the safety car in Azerbaijan he would have inherited victory in that race instead of finishing fourth, gaining 13 more.

It's conceivable that Vettel should be leading this championship by 55 points, rather than trailing by 59

Pushing the front-left Pirelli tyre past breaking point at Silverstone made the difference between finishing third or seventh in that race and chucked another nine points in the bin, while choosing to start the Singapore GP from pole in second gear, before aggressively defending position, cost another likely victory and the 25 points that goes with it.

Without that shunt, Hamilton would likely have done no better than fourth in Singapore, swinging things in Vettel's favour by another 13 points. Add those to the 13 extra Vettel should have earned by winning in Malaysia (plus the three Hamilton would drop for finishing third), and the 25 gone begging in Japan (minus seven from Hamilton's total) and it's conceivable with a 'perfect' season that Vettel should be leading this championship by 55 points, rather than trailing by 59.

Freak reliability problems are part of the game, of course, as Hamilton found to his cost last season. But Ferrari and Vettel have thrown away enough points regardless that, even with these recent engine failures, they should have built enough of a buffer for Vettel to leave Japan still leading.

When your car is not the out-and-out fastest on the grid, which the Ferrari is clearly not, you cannot afford mistakes if you want to win, whether they be from driver, team or suppliers.

Ferrari technical director Mattia Binotto spoke of Ferrari's plans to reorganise its quality control department in the wake of those turbo compressor inlet manifold failures on both cars at Sepang, but this will come too late to save Vettel's season.

It's also vital not to overreact, which has not been Ferrari's strength in defeat in the past. Vettel spoke after the Japanese GP about the pain of this latest setback, and the need to "protect" Ferrari after the "incredible job" it has done to transform itself into a title contender this season, but what will hurt most is how Ferrari's reliability problems once again let Hamilton off the hook and cleared his path to victory.

Hamilton is on one of those runs where he can seemingly do no wrong - perhaps even walk on water if he wants to. In Singapore, he pretty much did to steal victory on a generally uncompetitive weekend for Mercedes, as Vettel, Verstappen and Kimi Raikkonen crashed out in front of him.

In Malaysia, Hamilton gained six points on Vettel on a weekend when he should have lost ground thanks to more Mercedes set-up trouble. In Japan, he was given a double boost - Vettel's woes, plus the fact the other man to make a strong start among the leading group, Verstappen, was coming from too far back to challenge for the lead.

"The start was OK, reckoned Hamilton. "The initial getaway was not spectacular, there was a bit of wheelspin. It was pretty much under control from there. I saw Max had done a big lunge into Turn 11 [the hairpin], so I saw them [Ferrari] drop back a step.

"From then I was just trying to manage the pace, manage the tyres. It was a long way to go, the hottest the track had been all weekend, so it was really crucial, knowing the Ferraris and Red Bulls are very, very quick in the race, that I looked after the tyres the best."

The track temperature was 15C hotter than in qualifying, where Red Bull had been a second off Mercedes' pace. The W08 struggled in the heat in Malaysia, and team boss Toto Wolff reckoned Sunday's hotter weather in Japan pulled it back towards Red Bull in the race.

In the end, tyre life proved quite important in denying Verstappen any chance of threatening Hamilton's superiority at the front. The Red Bull looked quite racy initially, but dropped back following the first virtual safety car period - called for Marcus Ericsson's crash at the second Degner - and gradually lost touch as the RB13 developed a blister on its left-front tyre.

"We saw it in the first stint, and because the second stint was 25% longer it reappeared," explained Red Bull team boss Christian Horner. "It was a concern, because you think back to Vettel at Silverstone - it's very easy to pick up a puncture.

"It's a team sport, they used Bottas strategically - you can't blame Mercedes for doing that" Christian Horner

"We were a little bit nervous about that, so we asked Max to maintain a three-second gap so as not to get into dirty air and damage the tyre further."

Verstappen closed in again following the pitstops, as Hamilton complained he was losing time behind Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas, who ran a long first stint on the harder tyre.

At the end of lap 28 of 53, Bottas allowed Hamilton past approaching the chicane, but waited another two laps before finally diving for the pits himself, allowing Hamilton some welcome breathing space from Verstappen's eager attentions.

"It's part of the game," said Horner, who reckoned "everything fell very nicely for Lewis today. It's a team sport, they used Bottas strategically - you can't blame Mercedes for doing that."

The race descended back into stalemate until Lance Stroll's Williams suffered a sudden failure on its right-front corner while negotiating the Esses in the closing stages.

Hamilton lost tyre temperature under virtual safety car conditions, then vital time trying to lap a frenetic battle for the final point between Felipe Massa's Williams and Fernando Alonso's McLaren when the race went green again.

"I was just controlling the pace, but towards the end lost a lot of temperature in the tyres and waking them up was not so easy," Hamilton explained. "Then I got traffic, I was stuck behind Fernando and Massa and I was just losing so much time.

"His [Verstappen's] car was so big in my mirrors. I was thinking 'jeez, this is very, very close' with a couple of laps to go - but once I got by I just managed to keep it together.

"We all know how quick Max is, he's doing a great job, very consistent. We're quicker in qualifying, but they [Red Bull] are at least within a tenth or so of us in the race.

"It was really just about not making mistakes. I was driving down the back straight at one point thinking 'the guy behind me is so much younger than me!' I've got make sure I kind of man up and show my age and make sure that I stay ahead, show that I'm actually still very young at heart.

"It was not an easy walk in the park today. It was very much one that I had to work very hard for."

Verstappen seemed to come off worse during the late lappery than Hamilton did, getting baulked by Alonso at the hairpin on the penultimate lap, then stuck behind Massa through the Esses at the start of the last, after Hamilton snuck through at Turn 1.

But although he had asked permission from Red Bull to attack Hamilton, Verstappen did not feel the backmarkers ultimately cost him his chance to win the race, despite the tense conclusion.

"I could see Lewis was managing his tyres, and with the traffic it just seems like it was a bit more difficult for him to follow other cars compared to me," Verstappen said. "I closed up, but it was more like when Lewis was getting held up then I could close up.

"Then maybe you can do something, but when you are really close you start to lose a lot of downforce, so I couldn't really attack him - but at least I tried.

"At the end of the day, I think I wouldn't have passed Lewis anyway, because it's really hard once he's in free air. It [the traffic] is of course not ideal, but it wouldn't have made a difference."

For Vettel and Ferrari, winning this championship now realistically depends on some terrible misfortune striking Hamilton's car

But one wonders how different the complexion of this championship might look had Red Bull raced this competitively from the early stages of the season, as most expected it would before development was derailed by early season windtunnel correlation problems.

Mercedes has endured its fair share of problems too, of course, in what has not exactly been a straightforward campaign for any of the top three teams. Some set-up adjustments allied to cooler weather got the W08 back on song in Japan, after the travails of Malaysia, but the key point is that Hamilton has scored big during Mercedes' recent run of adversity.

He could easily have leaked 30 points to Vettel over the past three races. Instead, he has gained 56.

"It's kind of unbelievable really, to think that we are where we are," said Hamilton, who seemed perturbed by engine vibrations on the slowing down lap that Wolff put down to a bit of good old fashioned championship leader paranoia.

"I was excited to have a good race with Sebastian here, as I was in the last race, but he's obviously been incredibly unfortunate.

"In the world today in Formula 1, it is a lot about reliability - it is about the team's whole performance, not just speed on the track, and I think the team has shown, for many years now, that we have a very, very solid platform.

"The guys do such a phenomenal job with how they build the car, in terms of reliability. Mercedes are the real leaders in that area, so I really owe it to everyone back at the factory for providing me with a car that I can utilise my abilities in.

"There's still a long way to go. One hundred points [to be won] is a lot of points. Anything can happen in life. I've just got to try and keep my head down and hopefully continue to perform like this."

For Vettel and Ferrari, winning this championship now realistically depends on some terrible misfortune striking Hamilton's car over the coming races. If Hamilton wins the next one at Austin, and Vettel does no better than sixth, Hamilton will be champion.

Hamilton needs only 42 more points over the remaining four races - the equivalent of three fourth places and a seventh - regardless of what Vettel does, to seal his fourth world championship.

"We still have a chance," said Vettel, more in hope than expectation. "We need to get back, get some rest, then go flat out for the last four races and see what happens."

That's all Vettel can do now - go for broke. But that spark plug failure is likely to sound the death knell for his shattered championship dream.

The funny thing is, Mercedes changed Hamilton's sixth-cylinder spark plug in parc ferme ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix, as Ferrari left Vettel's car untouched.

Success in F1 is often about taking care of tiny details. In this case, they have almost certainly now undone Vettel and Ferrari.