Raikkonen's resurgence is Ferrari's biggest problem

When Formula 1 races are snatched by the kind of small margins that allowed Lewis Hamilton to mug Ferrari at Monza, it becomes all too tempting to dissect the weekend in a bid to find the moment the war was won and lost.

What if Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel hadn't battled so hard on the first lap, thereby gifting Hamilton the sniff he needed to draw alongside his world championship challenger at the second chicane and turn the race on its head?

What if Ferrari had been a bit more organised in Q3 to get Vettel better track position - either through being closer to Hamilton (Carlos Sainz Jr managed to briefly get between them on the out-lap), or even getting a tow off Raikkonen? Pole position could have been Vettel's and Sunday would have been a different story.

What if it hadn't rained on Friday morning, and track time hadn't been lost through Marcus Ericsson's crash in the afternoon - costing Ferrari the valuable long-run information that would have alerted it to the need to find a better race set-up to avoid tyre blistering?

If, if, if. F1 is full of them. But one thing is definite: Ferrari had everything in its hands to finish one-two at Monza, and it blew it spectacularly.

One over-riding impression after the race was that the blame for the loss was down to another unnecessary mistake from Vettel, but, if you step back from the events of the weekend, you quickly see that this was not really a failure of the drivers in the cockpit, and instead more a failure of team management to grab control of the situation.

Monza was a clear example of how Ferrari has failed to seize the initiative in working out how best to help Vettel's title challenge amid a resurgence of pace from Raikkonen.

If Raikkonen had lost his edge this year and been no threat to Vettel, things would have been much simpler. But the Finn's rediscovered form has meant he is a challenger to Vettel for results and that factor at Monza was the catalyst for the race going all wrong for Ferrari.

The trigger point for what happened on lap one was Raikkonen's pole position. The tow he got off his team-mate in Q3 was crucial to allowing him to gain the top spot, and Vettel knew that starting second just ahead of title rival Hamilton was a totally different scenario to starting from pole with a Finnish buffer behind him.

Vettel was well aware that starting second left him needing to do something early on. But Raikkonen's robust defence away from the grid, and his line into the first chicane, which compromised his team-mate's exit, allowed Hamilton all the chance he needed to disrupt the red cars at the front.

In an ultra-tight world championship fight, where Ferrari is in need of as many points as possible, there is really no excuse for allowing itself to get into a situation where its two drivers are able to trip themselves up like that.

Mercedes realised a very long opening stint for Bottas would cost him very little, but could help his team-mate a great deal by disrupting Raikkonen's race

Vettel's focus should have been all about defending from Hamilton behind, rather than being worried about getting ahead of Raikkonen. It was an unnecessary fight.

It really should have been game over for Hamilton after lap one. A swift shuffle of positions between Vettel and Raikkonen would have allowed Ferrari's only title contender to make a break for it at the front, and the story from Monza would have been very different.

While Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene might have tried to take the moral high ground after the race by claiming that team orders were not his style - saying Ferrari had hired 'drivers and not butlers' - I'm sure the tifosi would have much preferred an orchestrated Vettel victory.

Team orders are never a good thing for fans, teams or drivers (unless you are the one being helped out), but they are an understandable part of motor racing.

With the way the world championship is playing out at the moment, it makes little sense for Ferrari or Mercedes' main title contenders to risk banging wheels or losing out to their team-mates. We are now at the serious end of the campaign (not like Austria in 2002), and team orders would be accepted by fans.

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff might have caused a bit of a flashpoint in Hungary when Valtteri Bottas misunderstood his "wingman" compliment, but on race morning in Italy the team was open about its tactics as it ran through all scenarios - including harsh team orders - in order to work out how best to pull the rug from underneath Ferrari's feet.

Being open and transparent about the situation left the Silver Arrows settling on the strategy that proved so critical in helping Hamilton get past Raikkonen. It realised a very long opening stint for Bottas would cost him very little, but could help his team-mate a great deal by disrupting Raikkonen's race.

Ferrari's weakness has been in failing to deal with Raikkonen in a similar way - either on or off the track. Too often it has skirted around the issue of how best to get him to support Vettel's title challenge without actually ordering him to do so - and the ambiguities have been allowed to fester.

Some bizarre strategy calls have been used to remove him from situations where he could have threatened Vettel's points haul (look at China), and the very fact that the team hesitated so much in ordering him to let his team-mate through in Germany as they ran on different strategies is a classic example of Ferrari not taking the direct approach.

In the end, Raikkonen got so frustrated at Hockenheim by the team beating around the bush that he confronted them.

"Can you be direct, I don't know, what do you want me to do?" Raikkonen said over the radio. "You want me to let him go? Please, just tell me."

Raikkonen is, after all, a man who plays everything with a straight bat. And ultimately, the failure to properly address the swap in Germany early enough had wider consequences.

A frustrated Vettel lost time before Raikkonen was told to move over, leaving him more exposed to the fast-charging Hamilton when the rain started coming down - probably forcing him to push harder than he would have liked. The result of that was clear to see when Vettel slid into the barriers in the stadium section.

Under Ferrari's previous chairman Sergio Marchionne, there is little doubt there would have more pressure on the team at Monza to act decisively to ensure that there was zero risk of Mercedes getting a look in. He would not have accepted anything less.

Would it have gone as far as ordering Raikkonen to give Vettel a tow in qualifying? Would there have been an order to get Vettel clear on lap one, while Raikkonen held back the pursuing pack? Maybe.

Ferrari's delays in making a final choice over a new deal for Raikkonen has proved to be a distraction

You could argue that Raikkonen may not have liked it and it would have been unfair on him; but equally, had the tragic events of July taken a different path, then he may not even have been racing at Monza in the first place.

There were some whispers floating around the Monza paddock that had Marchionne still been around, his desire to promote Charles Leclerc to the Ferrari seat would not have waited until 2019: he was ready to slot the Monegasque driver in during this season. And you can guarantee had that happened, there would be a clear Ferrari number one and two for the rest of the year.

Ferrari's inability to deal with the Raikkonen team orders issue on track comes against the backdrop of it being unable to sort out the Finn's off-track situation either.

Its delays in making a final choice over a new deal for Raikkonen has proved to be a distraction, and the matter clearly hung over the driver and team at Monza. Perhaps unfairly, it has also left Raikkonen forlornly chasing strong showings to try to earn a late reprieve.

Contrast this situation with Mercedes, which sorted out both of its driver contracts before the summer break. That meant its drivers - especially Bottas - knew the team had faith, so if a call came to ask him to help out his team-mate, there would be no hesitation to follow the order.

Raikkonen has been left in a situation where he doesn't really know where he stands: the team would like him to play the support role for Vettel, but it does not want to tell him that. The team wants him to perform at his best and keep the Mercedes at bay, but it does not have the faith to commit to him for another season.

It is no wonder there is little incentive from Raikkonen's side to look at the wider championship and team situation. He is fighting for himself, and fighting for his future because no one has the strength to tell him any different.

For a racing driver, ambiguity is a bad thing. And Ferrari's imminent announcement on its 2019 plans will be too little, too late.

Ferrari really should have seized the initiative much earlier this year: and should be celebrating a marvellous one-two at Monza this week. Instead, it can only point fingers at itself for all that went wrong last weekend.