How a Red Bull-era weakness is still plaguing Vettel

Charles Leclerc again put Ferrari team-mate Sebastian Vettel to shame during the British Grand Prix weekend at Silverstone. Leclerc was faster all weekend, and it was Vettel that made a big error and drop-kicked Max Verstappen into the gravel while trying to reclaim third place.

The catalogue of Vettel mistakes is getting longer and longer and this was just another that simply didn't need to happen. He must address this immediately, otherwise even the hope of finishing third in the drivers' championship will be long gone given Verstappen is 13 points ahead of Vettel, and Leclerc is just three points further back.

Over the past season's worth of races, stretching back to Germany 2018, we've seen so many mistakes. At Hockenheim, he locked up and crashed while leading; at Monza, he spun after clashing with Lewis Hamilton; at Austin, he spun battling with Daniel Ricciardo; at Suzuka he clashed with Verstappen; in Bahrain this year he spun again battling with Hamilton and in Canada he went off the track and earned a penalty for the way he rejoined. He's going at a rate of one big in-race error every three races.

Watching from the BRDC suite at Brooklands on both Friday and Saturday, you could see Leclerc was hustling the car. When he was coming off the brakes and getting on the throttle he was on it hard, but Vettel was on more of an afternoon cruise.

He said he wasn't happy with the feeling from the car but what I saw was someone that wasn't putting it on the line anywhere near as much as the other frontrunners - Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas, Leclerc or Vestappen.

If anything, the Ferrari would break into understeer, which some drivers like and can cope with, but I don't think Vettel has ever been one of those. In the old days of exhaust-blown diffusers, he was the master. On corner entry the rear was always on the move but he knew that when he planted the throttle the rear would grip, so he had the front end for corner entry and the rear for corner exit. The balance switch was the throttle, which he controlled.

The drivers' championship domination of 2010-13 is a distant memory. Vettel has now been at Ferrari for five seasons, and both parties thought more success would come

The one season that Red Bull struggled early on to get the exhaust-blown diffuser working was when Mark Webber stepped up to the plate. Either Webber could drive the car without the increased grip from getting the throttle open or he couldn't make use of it when it did work. Either way, for those early races he performed better than Vettel.

It's not like that with these cars and the balance characteristics are basically what you have. As I said a few weeks ago, I believe - and more so now from watching the cars at Silverstone - that the Mercedes makes more use of an aerodynamic balance shift with varying steering lock.

When they apply more lock, the aero load moves forward and increases the front grip. When Ferrari applies more lock, the car just understeers more. More lock is required in slower corners, which is where the rear of the Mercedes is lively, but the Ferrari in Vettel's hands just suffers from understeer.

In an earlier column, I said that I felt the problem lies in the front wing design. Not having a downforce-producing wing section behind the front tyres means that when the Ferrari drivers apply more steering lock and open up that section of wing there is nothing there to create front load. On the Mercedes, it has the wing section outboard and I believe getting the endplate detail to optimise this was one of its biggest improvements post pre-season testing.

Ferrari won't achieve this mechanically. The aero loads way exceed anything it will be able to do by being a bit kinder to the tyre. To do the aerodynamic research to achieve this will take time and, more importantly, because windtunnel run time is limited you need to believe in it to pursue it.

Sometimes, it's just easier to chase that little bit more overall load. Yes, it will probably help, but if the underlying problem is still there then when push comes to shove the same problem will rear its ugly head.

Vettel is without doubt a top class driver but he needs the car to suit him. In 2014, when he was up against Ricciardo in a Red Bull without any form of exhaust-blown diffuser, Ricciardo showed that the up and coming drivers are sometimes able to give what they have a bit more of a fling.

But Vettel doesn't seem to be willing to take it on his own shoulders that he needs to adapt. That said, I also believe Ferrari has a role to play in helping Vettel, improving the car to reduce its understeering characteristics. The only problem is that if the team is successful, Leclerc will also be in line to benefit.

The drivers' championship domination of 2010-13 is a long and distant memory. Vettel has now been at Ferrari for five seasons, and both he and the team thought more success would come their way, but the unfortunate thing is that success is only relative to the competition and they have hit a time when Mercedes is in a rich vein of success. Given it has the chance to break a few more records, I don't see this success waning any time soon.

Looking away from Ferrari, the British Grand Prix proved that Silverstone is one of those classic races that deserves to stay on the calendar. A weekend attendance of 351,000 and a raceday turnout of 141,000 just shows that this is the true home of Formula 1 - and what a race those fans were able to enjoy.

Racing Point is right on the doorstep and with the Haas UK base, Red Bull and Mercedes all just a stone's throw away from the track - and Williams and the rest not much further away - F1 generates a lot of industry and excellence in this part of the UK.

Only Ferrari, Sauber and Toro Rosso have their main bases outside the UK and even then the latter has its aerodynamic base in Bicester. So those three teams need to be careful, as if by some miracle Brexit goes through then by this time next year we might not let them into the country.

Bottas needs to close off these 'opportunities' or lack of 'opportunities' that seem to come his way

Speaking of governanace, isn't it time that someone in government realises that F1 is such an advertisement for the level of engineering in the UK and that something should be done with it to promote our engineering expertise? A small investment in the British Grand Prix would really take the financial pressure off Silverstone.

Sunday's race was a great advertisement for why the British GP matters. Behind the front two it was an action packed event and the battle for third was what we would all want for the win. But once again, on race day, Mercedes showed its true dominance and my only criticism would be the strategy call for Bottas.

If it is a toss up between one or two stops then you need to make sure that you cover yourself regulation-wise by using two different compounds during the first stop. Bottas and Hamilton both started on the medium tyre, Bottas pitted first and fitted another set of the medium tyres and by doing so declared to the whole pitlane that he was two-stopping.

Yes, Hamilton got the luxury of pitting during the safety-car period (which actually I don't think was necessary and a VSC would have been adequate) but that wasn't what won him the race. By replacing his used medium tyres with the hard tyre he could go to the end, and basically that was job done.

I'm not saying that the team gave, or gives, Hamilton priority, but Bottas needs to close off these 'opportunities' or lack of 'opportunities' that seem to come his way.

As for the rest, we now seem to have a fairly tight battle between Ferrari and Red Bull and it was good to see Pierre Gasly becoming a contender in that battle. He has definitely benefited from going back to basics and just driving what he is given based around Max's set-up.