Why Ferrari's latest defeat was the most painful

Sebastian Vettel's United States Grand Prix loss to Lewis Hamilton was superficially the mildest of Ferrari's recent disasters. He finished second and there was no start catastrophe or mechanical malady to be distraught about, but this will nonetheless have been the hardest of hard knocks.

For this was a long, slow death at the hands of the dominant combined force of Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes. Unlike Singapore, Malaysia and Japan, all races Ferrari could argue it might have won, this was defeat; pure, simple and emphatic.

Hamilton under-delivered in qualifying and left a few tenths on the table thanks to failing to improve with his final Q3 run, but was still on pole position by 0.239 seconds. After losing track position at the start, he still reclaimed the lead from Vettel with surprising ease.

Even when Mercedes left Hamilton vulnerable to a Vettel attack by delaying his pitstop, the tables still did not turn in favour of Ferrari. As Vettel put it, "there was no real secret other than that they were quicker than us".

The only possible case for the defence of Ferrari is Vettel's iffy Friday, which resulted in a precautionary monocoque change triggered by the alleged "jelly"-like feeling of the front axle. But even Vettel mentioned that only in passing. He knew exactly what this result said about the relative performance of Ferrari and Mercedes at the Circuit of the Americas.

While his mood after the race was subdued, in the early seconds of the race Vettel must have been delighted. He hooked up the start superbly, quickly pulling alongside Hamilton's polesitting Mercedes on the inside line on the run up the hill to the Turn 1 left-hander.

"My start was good," said Hamilton. "It was just the initial phase was the same as his and then the second part of the getaway was just a little bit stronger for him. I had a bit of wheelspin. The last 10 years Ferrari have always been very good at starts and this year they have definitely taken a step."

Hamilton jinked to the left, eager to keep Vettel pinned as tightly to the inside and compromise his exit from the first corner, but it was to no avail. Vettel simply made use of the wide expanse of runoff at the exit of Turn 1 to carry in a little extra speed by letting his Ferrari run just beyond the white line demarking the edge of the track and over the kerb. The lead was his.

"I tried to block, maybe I could have done a bit more, but on the other hand I think he was just so much quicker" Sebastian Vettel

Vettel completed the first lap 1.3s clear, but it never got better than that. At the end of lap three, he was still 1.3s ahead and just out of DRS range, but on the next two laps Hamilton was on average 0.142s faster to start the decisive sixth lap just 1.045s behind. By the time they were running downhill to Turn 2, that was down to seven-tenths and Hamilton saw his chance.

On Vettel's tail through the fast sweeps of the first sector and then out of the Turn 11 hairpin onto the back straight, Hamilton had the advantage of the DRS. When the inevitable attack came, it was relatively straightforward and Hamilton was able to pass up the inside, with Vettel seemingly taken by surprise and reacting too late to make any kind of defensive move.

"I was kind of chilled about it, just knowing in the past that you can overtake here," said Hamilton of the phase when he was behind Vettel. "Having that battle, trying to get close, trying to get in the DRS, it was very reminiscent of 2012 here, seeing Sebastian up ahead and wanting to have a wheel-to-wheel battle. Obviously it came down to the overtake in Turn 12. I was a little bit surprised Sebastian didn't defend more, I would have."

Vettel, too, was surprised - not just by that move but also by the fact he couldn't live with Hamilton on race pace.

"It started off well with a great start, but then we were just not quick enough," said Vettel. "I felt the car and the tyres suffering quite a lot after three or four laps and Lewis was easily able to stay with us, close the gap and easily get into the DRS, which is not easy after the fast section, so he was just quicker.

"I tried to block, maybe I could have done a bit more, but on the other hand I think he was just so much quicker that it didn't happen."

But while Vettel said Ferrari had to understand exactly where the lack of pace was, and why he was struggling with the tyres, Hamilton claimed to know exactly what was happening. The usual strategy for a driver in second place would be to bide your time, but Hamilton could see something was wrong.

"I noticed I was able to remain relatively close," said Hamilton. "Initially, I was thinking maybe I would just have to stay close and wait for the pitstops but then I could see him pushing. I'm thinking, 'I'm pretty good on my tyres right now, and he's going too quick through that corner so he's going to kill his tyres', and that's what he did.

"He was driving too quick through some of those corners and the temperatures would have been going up. If he had backed off in those places he would have been able to keep me behind, but he didn't. He made a few mistakes, he was locking up and I thought 'I've got this'."

And that was that. Or rather, it should have been. It was clear Mercedes was concerned about tyre life, so when Vettel made his first pitstop on lap 16 after suffering front blistering - slotting into a handy gap between the Red Bull of Max Verstappen, who had charged up from 16th on the grid after engine penalties, and star Renault newcomer Carlos Sainz Jr - the decision was made not to react immediately. After all, Hamilton said he could comfortably extend the stint and Mercedes wanted to minimise the risk of late-race tyre trouble.

Vettel had lost a further 0.3s per lap to Hamilton on the same tyres

Hamilton stayed out for three more laps, with Vettel bashing in the two fastest laps of the race up to that point. As he emerged from the pitlane, Vettel was right with Hamilton and for a few moments it seemed possible the Ferrari driver might attack as they exited the first corner nose-to-tail. But with that possibility repulsed, Hamilton quickly re-established his margin in what was then merely the de facto lead as Kimi Raikkonen and Verstappen were up ahead.

By the end of his out-lap, Hamilton's lead was up to 1.4s. He could only ask over the radio, "why was he allowed to get so close?".

It's easy to call this an error by Mercedes, and it was certainly a case of cutting it fine. But the prodigious speed of the third of Vettel's laps, aided by running beyond track limits at Turn 19 to pick up some extra time, caught the team on the hop. That, combined with the nature of the hairpin first corner, exaggerated how close things really were.

With Raikkonen pitting on lap 21, the only stumbling block remaining for Hamilton was the super-soft shod Verstappen. He cleared that particular obstacle a couple of laps later with a move that started at Turn 12 but took a couple more corners to complete. By the time Verstappen pitted and Vettel moved back up into second, Hamilton's advantage was 3.441s.

Fifteen laps later, when Vettel peeled into the pits to make a second stop triggered by fifth-placed Verstappen being called in a lap before, he had lost a further 0.3s per lap to Hamilton. That's on the same soft-compound Pirellis, and with only a three-lap tyre age disadvantage.

While Hamilton continued on his way to a ninth win of the season, things had become a lot more complicated behind him. Vettel's stop was to react to the Verstappen threat, and he came out of the pits just ahead of the Red Bull. But he still had to catch and pass Raikkonen and Valtteri Bottas, who stayed out.

Bottas had run third early on, repulsing some forceful attacks from Daniel Ricciardo before the Red Bull driver made an early first tyre stop and then retired with an engine problem. Subsequently, he came under pressure from Raikkonen, with the pair locked together in a fight for third.

Once Vettel had made his stop and emerged on fresh super-softs, he was 17 seconds behind the battle that was now for second place. It was clear neither had any intention of stopping, and while Raikkonen was always going to let his team-mate past it was going to be no easy task clearing Bottas.

The task was made more straightforward when Raikkonen passed Bottas with a regulation move up the inside of Turn 12 after assistance from the DRS. As Bottas was on soft Pirellis with 17 more laps on them than Vettel's fresh super-soft, the gap evaporated over the next 13 laps.

With just under five laps remaining, the pair happened upon Stoffel Vandoorne's lapped McLaren, with Bottas diving to the inside at Turn 1. Vettel stayed wide for the entry, and with Bottas leaving far too generous a space the Ferrari slotted between the Mercedes and the McLaren to secure third, which became second a lap later when Raikkonen let him by.

Hamilton, meanwhile, was cruising up front. Once Vettel was up to second, the lead was just north of 15 seconds. So even with the tyre advantage, Vettel had only closed up by 11 seconds - eventually crossing the line 10.143s down.

The only negative for Hamilton was that he didn't clinch his fourth drivers' championship. But that's just a mere formality

With Verstappen passing Bottas for fourth, shoving him wide in the process and leading the second Mercedes to dive into the pits for a late change of Pirellis, the focus at the end of the race was on the battle for third.

Raikkonen was struggling for fuel and Vettel dropped back a little to give his team-mate a tow and, crucially, to try to give him the use of the DRS on the last lap. The plan failed though, with Raikkonen shown as 1.040s behind as he passed the DRS detection point before the previous hairpin, and Verstappen comfortably within range of the Finn to close up even further down the following straight.

Come the quick three-part right-hander of Turns 16-18, Verstappen was right with Raikkonen. He had an overlap by the first apex, but made the move for third by taking to the inside kerb - with all four wheels behind the white line - in the middle of the corner. That gave him a decisive advantage and left Raikkonen standing.

Whatever your position on the consistency or lack thereof of track limit regulations, Verstappen was unquestionably off the track and taking an advantageous quicker line through the corner. As his front wheels were still behind those of Raikkonen at the point he committed to the piece of bonus track, you cannot argue he didn't gain an advantage. The fact that the current track limits regime is clearly broken doesn't change that.

Verstappen's subsequent five-second penalty cost the race a dramatic last-lap pass for a podium position, and you can certainly argue other track limits violations of a different nature were ignored, but it was a swiftly executed decision that the facts of the specific case proved to be absolutely correct.

The final indignity for Vettel and Ferrari was that Hamilton clearly had a ball winning this race. Just as it was a kick in the teeth for all at Maranello to be so emphatically beaten, so Hamilton revelled in what was only his second proper racing pass of Vettel of 2017 as Mercedes clinched a fourth consecutive constructors' championship.

"Barcelona was an enjoyable one, and Montreal, there have been a couple of really great races where I have enjoyed driving the car to the point like it is almost a rollercoaster ride, where you want to put your hands up," said Hamilton. "That is how the track has felt like with these cars.

"During the race that have been times where it's been like 'wow, this is just so awesome'. That was probably when I was behind Sebastian, because when I am in a real fight with Ferrari, that is what I dreamed of doing when I was growing up watching Michael [Schumacher] race. I hope these next couple of races we have more of that."

The only negative for Hamilton was that he didn't clinch his fourth drivers' championship. But that's just a mere formality and only a matter of time. He was more interested in fighting with Vettel, and winning, in the process underlining his supremacy.

"It probably wasn't our race to win," was Vettel's conclusion. Something that he and his Ferrari cohorts certainly couldn't have said after the previous three grands prix. And that is what will hurt more than anything.