How Schumacher's Ferrari empire fell apart
All empires fall. Interference from above shattered Jean Todt's superteam, put the brakes on Ferrari's serial championship domination, and once again left them chasing dreams, writes DAMIEN SMITH
Sebastian Vettel would properly cherish a world championship won in a Ferrari.
Of all the drivers racing on the 2018 grid, he'd get it more than any of them. To join the canon; to add to his Red Bull haul with F1's greatest team and equal Fangio's title tally of five; to follow in the wheel tracks of his friend and countryman Michael Schumacher; and to achieve what Fernando Alonso failed to pull off in five seasons. How satisfying for a man who carries the Prancing Horse shield into battle with heartfelt pride. He'd wear that title well.
But the big question must dwell somewhere in his psyche: like Alonso, the man feted by so many (and surely to Vettel's annoyance) as the most complete F1 driver of the modern era, is Vettel destined to miss out too? Or could he still be the man to gloriously rescue the Scuderia from a title slump all too familiar from decades past? This year, we might be about to find out.
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