Why there's hope in Ferrari's latest failure

Those who work at Ferrari will look back on the 2017 Formula 1 championship with enormous frustration. Sebastian Vettel could, and arguably should, have won the drivers' title. Ferrari could and should have pushed Mercedes closer for the constructors' championship.

But they didn't. They fell short. Again.

Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne has been highly critical of his team. He described its form as "embarrassing", lambasted its quality control department and blamed his drivers for "errors" and "misjudgements". He also accepted some of the responsibility.

"I don't believe in bad luck," he said. "Ultimately, it was a reflection on the way in which we managed the businesses."

Ferrari employees are right to be unsatisfied. As are the drivers. As are the management.

But they should not be too hard on themselves. Yes, Ferrari has its weaknesses, such as its management's approach; its impatience; its insistence on operating a number one and number two driver system; and its unhealthy obsession with worrying about what other people - particularly in its home country - think.

But despite all of that, it managed to put together a sustained title fight for the first time in a decade. This was Ferrari's best season since it won the constructors' championship in 2008.

When you take a team's fastest lap from any session over the weekend for all the races in a season, converted to a percentage, with 100% representing the theoretical outright fastest - known as the 'supertime' method - Ferrari last led the way in 2008 with 100.102%. This year, with one race to go, it has a percentage of 100.247 - the closest it has been since.

Ferrari's supertimes

Comparing its performance for each season since 2008

Its current points tally - 495 - is its highest ever. And it could have been so much higher. Sebastian Vettel's collision with team-mate Kimi Raikkonen and Red Bull's Max Verstappen before the first corner in Singapore threw away a likely one-two finish. In Malaysia and Japan, it had the pace to win but engine woes destroyed its chances - Raikkonen didn't even make the start in Malaysia.

This year's tally is also 27 points better than Red Bull achieved when it finished second in the constructors' championship last year.

Ferrari secured five wins this season, all courtesy of Vettel, which is its biggest haul since 2010, but six shy of Mercedes' tally. That comes after a 2016 season where it failed to reach the top step once and faded as the campaign went on. In the six seasons in between (2011- 2016), Ferrari scored eight wins. So that's a huge improvement. Importantly, this year it has scored those victories across the season, proving it has could keep pace with Mercedes in the development race.

Ferrari's consistency has also been strong. This year, Vettel and Raikkonen have combined to score 19 podiums from a maximum 38 opportunities. That compares with 24 for Mercedes.

"Of course if you miss out it sort of sucks, but you have to be fair. We hadn't been very competitive last year. We've made massive progress"
Sebastian Vettel

It is its best tally since the 2008 season, although the team managed to achieve that total in 18 races and 36 opportunities. Of the 32 races its drivers have seen the chequered flag during this campaign, every single finish has been inside the points. Of those points finishes, only five were outside the top four.

But perhaps its biggest gain has come in qualifying. While Ferrari has had a car capable of competing towards the front in race trim in recent years, that has not been the case in terms of one-lap pace.

Between 2010 and 2016, the Italian team scored just four pole positions. This year Vettel took four, and Raikkonen one, to exceed that tally in a single season.

"Overall it was very positive this year," said Vettel after his win in Brazil, where he passed Valtteri Bottas on the opening lap and only briefly lost the lead when Lewis Hamilton ran a long first stint on an alternative strategy.

"Nobody expected Ferrari to be that strong, for us to be that strong. We made the biggest step, there was a lot of talk about other people, but in the end we were there from the start and also until the end.

"We are in a position to fight for victory, we won here, had two cars on the podium. I think there's a lot of positives."

Key to its success has been its performance in the development race. Since 2008, Ferrari has been unable to sustain a title challenge across a season. This year, it has done just that. Its pace in the Asian races (even if it was not rewarded) and in Brazil is proof.

"Of course if you miss out it sort of sucks, there's no other way, but you have to be fair as well," said Vettel. "We hadn't been very competitive last year, we hadn't been very good developing the car and we've made massive progress this year. So even if you look at the chance that maybe you missed, you have to give credit to all the people, to all the team for the step that we made.

"I think we can all feel that we're getting stronger so hopefully we can carry that strength into the next couple of years, not just next year, not just the winter but also the future because I think our objective is to bring Ferrari back properly, get there and dominate. That's what we want to do."

Vettel has been saying all season long that Ferrari is getting stronger, but it wasn't until it showed its pace in Singapore, Malaysia, Japan and Brazil that it was believable.

That victory in Brazil was important on so many levels. It proved that Ferrari can win across a grand prix season. It proved that the team can recover from a major setback reasonably quickly. And it proved that Vettel and Ferrari are as hungry as ever to win the team's first drivers' title since 2007 and first constructors' championship since 2008.

The challenge, as Vettel says, will be to maintain that challenge into next year - something Ferrari has not managed since 2006-2008 and before that 2000-2004. The recent pattern has been a strong year, followed by a poor year.

But this is certainly the closest it has come since those two golden periods. And with the regulations remaining stable, engines could converge and the field could get even closer.

Ferrari could become a force, providing it has learned its lessons and can build on this year's gains. A lot of that will depend on the quality of next year's car. But the statistics show this year that Ferrari is stronger than it has been in a decade.

And while this defeat will hurt for some time, having come so close, everyone at Maranello should take hope from this season. There is genuine reason to be optimistic.