Why Vettel's season is going down the pan

Ferrari won at Silverstone, home track of the Mercedes team, and publicly delighted in the fact. But Mercedes paid that back by winning at Monza - Ferrari's back yard.

Ferrari was that little bit faster than the Mercedes, and on home turf it occupied the front row, which meant the tifosi came in their droves on Sunday. Unfortunately, they didn't all have reason to stay until the chequered flag.

The real reason for this was yet another mistake from Sebastian Vettel. He's made a few significant ones this year. In Baku, he locked up and went off while trying to take the lead from Valtteri Bottas. At Paul Ricard he rear-ended Bottas at the start, then he crashed out of the lead at Hockenheim - handing victory to Lewis Hamilton.

At Monza he understeered into Hamilton at the second chicane on the first lap while trying to hold on to second place. That resulted in him finishing fourth and losing a net 13 points to Hamilton.

I know it's racing, but for Mercedes to tell Bottas to stay out and make sure Raikkonen didn't get past was a bit outside of what should be the spirit of racing

These are big points being thrown away, and if Vettel wants to win a fifth world championship he needs to cut these mistakes out now. Otherwise, it's going to be another 'nearly' world championship.

We've seen this kind of thing from Vettel before. Last year, hitting Hamilton deliberately under the safety car int Baku and the crash at the start of the Singapore Grand Prix shows he has these red mist moments when the pressure is on.

Maybe it's just that when things start to go wrong, it really gets to him. I'm sure he expected to pass Raikkonen at the first corner and was probably annoyed that he didn't. That made him desperate to get past him at the second chicane and allowed Hamilton to creep up on him.

In any championship fight there will be moments like this. And over the past 18 months of battling with Vettel, Hamilton has usually had the better of him. Vettel is a very fast driver but it's in those high-pressure racing situations that things get away from him.

In his calmer and more reflective moments he probably recognises that. But clearly he hasn't been able to learn and prevent it from happening again. All four of his costly mistakes have been avoidable, and he just needs to be better at thinking on his feet - because when everything is going right, he drives superbly.

Hamilton, on the other hand, has had his problems this year but he does not make unforced errors any more and is stronger in pressure situations.

I know it's racing, and in my time I would probably have done exactly the same, but for Mercedes to ask - no, actually, tell - Bottas to stay out and make sure he didn't let Raikkonen past was a bit outside of what should be 'the spirit of racing'.

And to make matters worse, at a circuit such as Monza - where the DRS is just way too powerful - it meant that when Hamilton caught Raikkonen, the overtake for the lead by Hamilton on Raikkonen was simply mirror-signal-manoeuvre to get around the outside into the chicane.

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said it was the right strategy for Bottas to run long, having lost a position to Max Verstappen at the first corner. It's true that once Bottas had dropped behind Verstappen, who then stopped before him, it made sense to extend the stint to give Bottas a tyre advantage later in the race.

But there's no doubt in my mind that the race situation between Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen led them to leaving Bottas out as long as they did. Bottas was explicitly told over the radio to keep Raikkonen behind, after all.

In my book, it's OK for teams to ask team-mates to trade places when necessary or requested. In other words, keeping team orders within your own team. But outside of that I think the FIA needs to stamp it out before 'B' teams, such as Haas and Sauber for Ferrari and Force India and Williams for Mercedes, start to get involved.

This is all stuff that can be fixed if someone has the will to do so. But for now, the main problem is that we are relying far too much on the DRS for passing. It is taking away real driver overtakes.

The battle between Raikkonen and Hamilton at the start of the race was great and it was good to see two clean passes by two professionals without the use of DRS. If we have to have it, then perhaps it should be allowed until you get within a second of the car in front. After that, the pass is down to driver skill.

For Ferrari the big question is why, after dominating the race at Spa where Mercedes suffered from rear tyre blistering, was the problem switched around? At Monza, Raikkonen lost the race win because of blistering on the left-rear tyre.

After Spa, Ferrari probably thought it was home and dry. Qualifying produced an all-red front row so the race should just be a matter of efficient execution

If Vettel hadn't had his bump with Hamilton and was running up front, he would probably have suffered the same problem. During his drive from last to fourth he also suffered left-rear blistering, so I wouldn't have expected anything much different.

Blistering is when the rubber basically starts to boil because of the temperature generated in the tyre carcass. We used to see it a lot at Monza on the inner shoulders of the front and rear tyres because of the cambers that the teams used to run. But now that is controlled it has moved to the middle of the tyre.

I've often said that if you give everyone at Mercedes something to scratch their heads about, they will come up with a solution. Given a few days to do that after Spa, the team found a setup that protected the rear tyres just that fraction more. It is only a tiny amount you need to do, but just reducing the rear tyre temperature by five degrees can be enough.

After Spa, Ferrari probably thought it was home and dry. It was wet for FP1, and then Marcus Ericsson's crash at the start of FP2 meant race simulations were limited. Then, qualifying produced an all-red front row so the race should just be a matter of efficient execution. Not so, I'm afraid.

There were three tyre compounds available at Monza: the medium, the soft and the supersoft. Ferrari's real problem was with the soft, since reduced downforce levels for Monza means the car slides around more; through the Curva Grande, the two Lesmos and the Parabolica, the left-rear tyre gets a real hammering. If the balance of the car isn't perfect it will have a dramatic effect on rear tyre temperatures.

Setting the car up with some understeer isn't always the correct way. On corner entry, the driver will be more aggressive to try to get the front to turn, and as you reduce the steering lock on corner exit the front tyre will grip. That causes a snap of oversteer, overworking the rear tyre.

No one bothered with the medium tyre and Ferrari's problems were with the soft. Raikkonen stopped at the end of lap 20 and changed to softs. This was way too early and at that time he was leading and fairly well in control - so five laps more might just have changed the outcome.

In general, for the downforce level that Ferrari was running at Monza even the soft was probably a bit too hard, so more sliding was induced. When Bottas was instructed to hold Raikkonen behind, this compounded the problem and did nothing for Raikkonen's tyres.

All in all, Hamilton and Mercedes pulled away in both championships. It was around this time last season when the same thing happened. Let's hope for the spectacle's sake we aren't going to see a repeat of last year. No matter who wins the championship, I want to see the battle going down to the last race of the season.

After the race, Romain Grosjean's Haas was disqualified for a floor infringement. From what I have heard the team basically knew that the floor contravened the regulations but because of lack of time to change it decided to go ahead anyway.

Sebastian, learn from your mistakes - otherwise this season is all going down the pan

In these circumstances, given the fact that the FIA knew about this infringement, it shouldn't have been down to Renault to protest Haas. This should simply have been down to the FIA to highlight during initial scrutineering.

It wasn't the biggest infringement I've ever heard of - simply a radius on the leading edge of the T-tray area. The regulations define it as a minimum of a 50mm radius, and with all the paraphernalia of bits and pieces in that area, the teams' interpretations vary.

The FIA had issued a few technical directives clarifying how they understood it and Haas chose to ignore them. These are not regulations, they are just to make sure that everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet.

The last time a car was disqualified post-race was Felipe Massa's Williams at Interlagos in 2015, which was for an illegal tyre pressure. Before that, Daniel Ricciardo lost second place in Australia 2014 for exceeding the fuel-flow limit, while the most similar one was the exclusion of the Saubers in Melbourne in 2011 for a rear-wing radius irregularity. Haas has now joined that club.

Either way, Haas is set to appeal. I've been there before and I can assure you there will only be one winner - the lawyers.

Remember Eddie Irvine being disqualified for one race in 1994 after his accident with Jos Verstappen and Martin Brundle in Brazil? We appealed, only for him to be banned for three races. So you quickly learn that it is much easier for everyone to accept what you are given rather than try to fight it.

After the weekend, it was confirmed that McLaren let Stoffel Vandoorne go. It's a pity for him because 90% of his problems have been down to the car. It's very difficult as a new, inexperienced driver in F1 to show your true potential unless you have a car that is a decent package. He hasn't had that over the last two years, so he had no hope of showing his true capabilities.

On to Singapore, a hot and sweaty night race. As far as true speed is concerned, Mercedes has struggled there but I'm sure the team will have done a bit (more) head scratching. So let's hope for another close battle.

May the best man win. And Sebastian, learn from your mistakes - otherwise this season is all going down the pan.