F1's ego-driven battle for greatness

By the end of 2018, the likelihood is that either Lewis Hamilton or Sebastian Vettel will have become a five-time world champion. In the statistical pantheon, that would move them ahead of Alain Prost and into a tie for second place with Juan Manuel Fangio, with only Michael Schumacher ahead - and one step closer to being matched.

So who will make the leap? The 2017 season provided the first head-to-head battle between these two titans of Formula 1's modern age, and '18 could be the next: Ferrari's against-the-odds Australia win and Bahrain triumph raised hopes of a tantalising face-off for a fifth title.

At this early stage in the season, however, there are doubts as to whether Ferrari can maintain the momentum of its first campaign under the new regulations. And, after 2017's end-of-year implosion, whether it can keep up a season-long challenge even though it has managed to start competitively.

The drivers also have their fallibilities - Hamilton and his occasional off-weekends; Vettel and the sort of red-mist moments that proved so costly last year. But of their ability to deliver world titles there is no question. That fifth championship clearly matters to both. But is it about being the first to five? Or could it be something less tangible... more personal?

Hamilton's voyage of discovery

All racing drivers exist to win; it's the essence of their being. And for those as great as Hamilton and Vettel, not winning hurts - and it drives them on to achieve better things.

But winning is a complex concept. In its simplest form, it means finishing first in a race, or a qualifying session. But it's more than that. All racing drivers quickly have to get used to the fact that they 
are going to be spending more time losing than they are winning. So to be a winner in their own minds is also about proving they are the best, and being seen to be the best. This is why beating a team-mate is so important. The same goes for earning the respect of your peers, 
and the acclaim of the outside world.

Hamilton is now statistically the most successful driver of both his era and his country. And in the last year or so he has passed a number of important landmarks. In Brazil 2016, he overtook Prost to become the second most successful driver ever in terms of wins. In Azerbaijan last year, he moved ahead of his childhood hero Ayrton Senna's tally of 65 poles, then in Italy surpassed Schumacher's all-time record of 68.

"My goal as a kid was always to be like Ayrton. I had never imagined beyond that" Lewis Hamilton

When his fourth title became inevitable, Hamilton was asked about whether he felt he could beat Schumacher's record of seven world championship wins. "It has never been my desire," he said.

"My goal as a kid was always to do something like Ayrton. I had never imagined what would be beyond that. So to think I will have these four titles and I am still young and still have time ahead of me, the quest is to see exactly what I want. Inevitably I want to go for a fifth. I have never had a dream to chase Michael or other people's titles, but it is one chapter closed and it is how I want to write the future."

Speaking at the launch of the 2018 Mercedes F1 car in late February, Hamilton claimed he "forgot about" what he had achieved in '17 over the winter: "I had no one reminding me that I was a four-time world champion, so I went back to normality. Then when you go back to training, you start to work out, why am I training? What is my motivation? Where am I going to find the training and the drive? What are the goals? It was only in the last couple of days that I saw something about being up there with Fangio and that is quite exciting.

"You have the down time. You've had a successful year; how can you go back? What's next? Are you still hungry? Do you still want to go back there and sit and do interviews? Do you still want to win races and do qualifying? Do you still enjoy driving the car? Can you be better? In what areas can you be better?

"There are other passions I have that 
I feel as strongly about as I do racing. At what point do they take priority? It is not a case of 'I've got to go to the gym so I'll sulk on the way to the gym.' I don't force it, I take my time, and eventually I miss going for a run and I miss working out and I look forward to getting back to it. And when you get back into that training process you discover the goals.

"It is quite simple," Hamilton concluded. "I want to somehow be better than I was last year. Last year I think was the best year I had performance-wise. How can I top that? I proved it was a very, very strong year, but there are lots of areas where I can improve, actually.

"Even in terms of my relationship with the team, how I interact with the team. How do I use their genius to help me achieve their goals and help them achieve what they want and what I want?"

So, what does Hamilton want? How does he want to write the future? During last season, another answer he gave on the same subject revealed further clues as to how he sees the remainder of his career.

"I am going to continue to expand on it," he said. "There are other drivers who are relatively close, like Sebastian. Someone else will come along, but I have got to take it as far as I can take it."

For Hamilton, it seems, the numbers themselves are not the thing. If anything, from now on the numbers are useful only as an objective measure of himself against others - a way of emphasising his already strongly held belief that he is the number-one driver of his era. And to do that, he has to beat Vettel and then keep on beating him, so his rival - who is two-and-a-half years younger - cannot overtake his statistics.

Is it personal?

The motivation behind this competition is not only external, in terms of how Hamilton is perceived, but also internal, in terms of how he perceives himself and his contemporary rivals. Throughout most of last year, Hamilton's public utterances made it very clear that he held Vettel in high regard.

"Competing against a four-time world champion, you know you are competing against the best," he said at one point. "You are competing against someone who is really on form and generally you are both on the knife edge and one of you is going to falter. I love that challenge of trying not to be the one that falters."

Then, on another occasion, he remarked: "He is an exceptional driver and he continues to show that year upon year and what he does in that Ferrari is fantastic."

"I've raced against the best here, which in my personal opinion is Fernando" Lewis Hamilton

And yet... Hamilton does not even think that Vettel is the best among his rivals. In an interview at the end of last season, he said he regarded himself, Vettel, Fernando Alonso and Max Verstappen as the top drivers. But discussing the prospect of a challenge that might be mounted by a future team-mate, he added: "I already feel like I've raced against the best here, which in my personal opinion is Fernando."

There was another point last year when he said: "I was team-mate to Alonso in my first year and I beat him." The truth of that statement is somewhat debatable. 
Yes, Hamilton technically finished second in the 2007 world championship, while Alonso finished third. But that was decided on a results countback of second places, after they tied on both points and wins. Of the races in which they both finished, Alonso was ahead six-five. In most objective eyes, that is as close to a draw as you can get in F1.

Nevertheless, Hamilton's remark is well worth emphasising, because it sums up his self-belief. Based on that collection of public utterances, it appears to be: "I'm the best. Alonso's the closest to me. And I'm damned if I'm going to allow myself to be beaten by anyone else - or be seen to be beaten - in a fair fight."

The lessons of 2016 appear only to have solidified this in Hamilton's mind. As that season was unfolding, he made much of the reliability problems that undoubtedly cost him the championship during his fight with team-mate Nico Rosberg. But since the start of '17, he has rarely mentioned them when talking about '16. He 
has tended only to talk about his own fallibilities - the dodgy starts, the off-weekends, the need to be at his best - without which he could have won in '16 even with the skewed reliability record.

This awareness of his own potential weaknesses, and a sense that only he can beat himself, was also clear in his reaction to Vettel's moment of madness at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku last year, when the Ferrari racer deliberately drove into Hamilton in a fit of pique, believing incorrectly that he had brake-tested him.

Once he had made it clear that Vettel had taken the accusation back, and once the dust had finally settled, Hamilton had this to say about the situation: "We are not 20-year olds. We are grown men now. Watching tennis, great players, great golfers, their mind is in control. You're having a battle with the guy and there is that famous saying: 'Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.' I watch Sebastian. I know what he has achieved. I know how consistent he has been. I know where his strengths and weakness are. I know the strengths and weaknesses of his car.

"Look at Nadal and Federer, the composure they have through a game and how they present themselves after a win or a loss. I try to follow that and take a lot of inspiration from that. There are times he probably hates me but I try not to contain any negativity. I have managed to build this barrier to bounce off negativity. Love conquers all.

"The feud after Baku and all that - even today, it doesn't matter. What matters when 
you fall is how you get up."

What they're fighting with

Backing up this towering sense of self-belief, Hamilton has a team which is redefining success in F1. On the foundation of a technological advantage with its engine, Mercedes has become a behemoth that is proving incredibly difficult to overcome.

Last year, it gave its rivals a chance. A fast but flawed car, weak on certain types of circuits, made Mercedes vulnerable. For a long time Ferrari looked ready to defeat it, only to display its own vulnerabilities - both Vettel's and those of the team in terms of reliability.

Right now, it's too early in 2018 to get a definitive pictures. If Mercedes had with this year's W09 kept the strengths of the W08 and eliminated many of its weaknesses, Hamilton could've made the championship a walkover. Right now, that looks very unlikely to be the case - but 2017 began with a diva and ended with an early title coronation.

Ferrari, meanwhile, has lengthened the wheelbase of its car in an attempt to emulate Mercedes' strengths on fast circuits, but there is a risk that in doing so it may have affected its blistering high-downforce performance. Time will tell as the calendar moves into its more representative stages.

In a giant's footsteps

If Ferrari has yet to prove that as a team it is a match for Mercedes, it is also valid to ask whether Vettel believes, deep down, that he really is a better driver than Hamilton, in the way that Hamilton very much believes he is a better driver than Vettel.

It's unlikely that question will be answered for some time - if ever. And it is almost certainly not relevant, because Vettel has a more tangible goal in mind than that. It's not just about a number for him either. He wants to be the next person to win the championship for Ferrari, and to follow in the footsteps of his hero - and later friend - Michael Schumacher.

"I want to win in red - it's what I want to achieve" Sebastian Vettel

"I want to win in red," Vettel said after signing his new three-year deal with Ferrari last summer. "We talked about inspiration earlier, about Michael, who was mostly dressed in red. He won most of his races and titles in red.

"I don't want to step in his footsteps. The whole generation of the Ferrari team today have to leave their own footsteps. But certainly there is a huge inspiration. Something that for me is now the biggest challenge and dream I have. It's what I want to achieve."

For Vettel, this goes back to childhood, and watching Schumacher rack up all those wins and titles for Maranello. He was intoxicated by the Ferrari legend then, and it has never left him. Even through his dominant years with Red Bull, he had an eye on a move to Italy. There were quiet conversations for a number of years. Each agreed they would be the other's next move; it was only a matter of when.

When Alonso began to lose faith in Ferrari through 2013, the idea began to solidify in the mind of Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo. In '14, Alonso fell out with new team boss Marco Mattiacci just as Vettel was struggling to cope with his new team-mate Daniel Ricciardo at Red Bull. Depending on who you believe, Alonso decided to leave, or was forced out by Ferrari. Vettel exercised the option in his Red Bull contract that let him exit and his quest to emulate Schumacher began.

"Ferrari has something unique," says Vettel, "something that other teams don't have... it appears that this legend is still alive because of the people that work for it day-in, day-out.

"If you walk down the streets of Maranello the presence of Ferrari is huge, but if you see the people working at Ferrari it is even bigger what they carry inside them, the passion for the brand, and I am convinced it allows them to go an extra step compared to other teams. It is great to be part of that family. We haven't yet achieved what we wanted to achieve."

That fifth title, then? It matters very much to both Hamilton and Vettel. Just not necessarily for the same reasons - or for the number by itself.

Andrew Benson is BBC Sport's chief F1 writer