The two eras of dominance that defined a decade in F1

Two drivers have dominated the past decade of Formula 1, in two distinct periods.

The first four years were all about Sebastian Vettel: a Michael Schumacher-esque wunderkind who formed an unstoppable, almost Jim Clark-like bond with that sequence of ingenious Adrian Newey-designed Red Bulls.

After that, came F1's ultra-complicated hybrid engine era, Mercedes' dominance, and Lewis Hamilton rising (again and again) to repeatedly conquer the world - and conquer Vettel too.

Vettel's time in F1's sun went by in a dark blue blur of sustained success: winning race after race from the front, dominating team-mate Mark Webber, Vettel brilliantly adapting his driving to suit the unusual 'nail-the-throttle-insanely-early-and-just-believe-the-grip-will-be-there' technique demanded by the re-emergence of early '90s blown diffuser technology.

He rode his luck too - how Vettel survived Bruno Senna's Williams torpedoing his Red Bull's sidepod to win the title at the 2012 Brazil finale remains a marvel - and he was also helped considerably by a lack of consistent opposition.

Fernando Alonso was forever hauling Ferraris that didn't deserve to win titles into contention, while the third great driver of this period - Hamilton - was busy battling the slow decline of McLaren-Mercedes and his own personal demons, before jumping ship to the nascent Mercedes works team at Niki Lauda's request.

Ferrari and McLaren were the giants of F1 in the previous decade, but their consistent floundering near enough allowed Vettel a clear run. His constant reminders to Red Bull to enjoy the purple patch while it lasted suggested he knew the run might be fleeting.

Vettel's harsher critics claim he was flattered by circumstance - and that sequence of brilliant Red Bulls - while seemingly forgetting he worked incredibly hard to make the most of his opportunity, as well as occasionally racing wheel to wheel successfully with opponents as formidable as Alonso.

Vettel has never fully recovered from losing the championship to Hamilton in 2017

That said, it increasingly looks as though the hybrid era has, to a certain extent, found Vettel out. Both he and Hamilton are emotional creatures - Helmut Marko describes Vettel as more Italian than German in his mentality - and as such, things need to feel right for them to perform at their best.

For the most part of this decade Vettel appears to have found this feeling only fleetingly.

He clearly struggled with Red Bull's crash back to Earth in 2014, straining to adjust to the combination of aerodynamic, engine, braking and tyre changes for that season that marked a clear break with the V8 era that preceded it. Red Bull felt Vettel lost focus, knowing there was no realistic way to continue his winning run.

The following season, fresh in at Ferrari, was the only time in recent years that Vettel has performed consistently at his best.

Mercedes - and Hamilton in particular - was utterly dominant that year, but Vettel came mighty close to beating Nico Rosberg to second in the championship. Vettel won three times, against the run of play, and with three races to go was narrowly ahead in the points - before Rosberg hit winning form to see Vettel off.

To my mind, Vettel has never fully recovered from losing the championship to Hamilton two years later.

That was the season he and Lewis went head to head as four-time champions in pursuit of a coveted fifth crown. The Ferrari was good enough to win it in 2017, but came up short. That spark plug failure in Japan was important, but so too was Vettel's misjudgement at the start in Singapore, which wiped him, team-mate Kimi Raikkonen and Max Verstappen out of a race that was there to be won on a poor weekend for Mercedes.

Vettel argued it was a small moment with big consequences, and that he wouldn't change his approach next time, but this was a clear glimpse at what appeared to be a deficiency in precise spatial awareness that has since come back to bite him repeatedly.

As the mistakes piled up, it seemed Ferrari also lost a significant degree of faith in its star signing, to the point where it is now hedging its bets on the emergence of a new young superstar.

F1, like all elite sport, is as much a mental game as anything else, and Vettel's inexplicable red-mist moment behind the safety car in Azerbaijan in 2017 - which led Hamilton to suggest Vettel had disgraced himself with behaviour that also earned a severe reprimand from the FIA - was for me the moment Hamilton knew he would eventually decisively gain the upper hand in their personal battle.

I attended the press briefing Hamilton gave to the media in the immediate aftermath of that race, and asked him about what that incident said about his rival's mental fragility. It was clear in Hamilton's thoughtful reflection that he knew he'd developed a clear chink in Vettel's armour.

"We've put a lot of pressure on Ferrari, he's under pressure and that's not a bad thing," Hamilton said. "That shows that often pressure can get to even some of the best of us."

Vettel often allows his emotions to get the better of him inside the car. Hamilton is emotional too, but that no longer seems to affect his driving in the same way it occasionally did early in his career.

To perform at his best, Vettel also needs the car to behave a certain way - a rapid and precise response on turn-in that allows him to nail the throttle early without too much trouble to deal with in the exit phase. When the car has too much understeer, or starts behaving inconsistently, Vettel can deal with it but, in Marko's words, "he doesn't like it".

When Vettel loses simpatico with his car, he starts overdriving and making errors, which we saw repeatedly in 2018 and 2019.

Vettel arguably operates in a narrower window than the other top drivers of this period, and making so many mistakes in the latter part of the decade means Hamilton has stood a class apart - especially so with Alonso mired at McLaren-Honda and then sat on the sidelines.

Hamilton enjoyed a clear car advantage for at least the first three seasons of the hybrid era; his only real threat coming from within. Hamilton's recent elevation, amid Vettel's struggles and Valtteri Bottas's inability to get on terms in the other Mercedes, arguably renders Rosberg's prior achievements more remarkable.

This 2014-16 period exposed Hamilton's sensitivity to atmosphere and energy - an artist who requires inspiration to produce masterpieces

The 2014 season was a close run thing as the campaign descended into a full blown civil war between two childhood rivals.

Hamilton repeatedly pressured Rosberg into mistakes to eventually gain the upper hand, which is a skill that sets Hamilton apart. He is utterly relentless in race mode, which means he is always a threat even if he falls behind. That he can so often turn losing positions into winning ones is no easy feat in a championship so often dominated by qualifying order.

Hamilton crushed Rosberg into dust in 2015, while in 2016 only poor reliability prevented a hat-trick. But Rosberg was also playing the game with as much cunning and guile as he could muster, upsetting Lewis to the extent Hamilton is rumoured to have almost quit the team following their collision on the first lap of the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix.

In the end, it was Rosberg who walked away, and that allowed Hamilton to elevate his game further, the cloud of negativity finally lifted from Mercedes and cleared from Hamilton's peripheral vision.

This period exposed Hamilton's sensitivity to atmosphere and energy, rather like an artist who requires inspiration to produce masterpieces.

Now ensconced in an environment where he feels 100% supported and need not waste one iota of energy on paranoia or skulduggery, Hamilton has evolved to a point where he is on course to eclipse Schumacher as the most successful driver F1 has ever had.

The final three seasons of this decade have undoubtedly been Hamilton's best, as the rules have biased away from pure engine power and back towards aerodynamic ingenuity. Mercedes' pace advantage in qualifying has eroded, but Hamilton's incredible ability to turn races around, while harvesting the lessons of 2016 to maximise scoring on his rare off-days, have made him unbeatable.

Bottas isn't yet at the same level anywhere near consistently enough; Verstappen is close but still a little too impetuous while driving with a car disadvantage most of the time; Charles Leclerc is still too inexperienced - though looking like a potential champion in waiting if Ferrari can finally get its act together.

Vettel's emerging internal struggles against Leclerc at the Scuderia in some ways echo Hamilton's earlier travails with Rosberg at Mercedes. Overcoming this represents arguably the biggest challenge Vettel has yet faced in his career.

With Alonso out of the picture for most of the 2010s, the decade should have concluded with Vettel rising up to challenge Hamilton in a battle for the ages between two of F1's great champions.

Unfortunately, we're still waiting for the Vettel of the first half of the decade to show up again...