The Ferrari driver’s last win was in the Belgian Grand Prix on 26 September 2018; and since then his driving has been more notable for its regular errors than the speed and easy elegance that marked his four world titles with Red Bull.
Vettel’s position as Ferrari number one has been threatened – if not already usurped – by his 21-year-old team-mate Charles Leclerc, and the German has faced questions about his future in the sport.
Coming to Singapore, where he has had such success in the past, offered a chance for redemption and catharsis. He got it, but not perhaps in the way he would have wanted.
Vettel was asked after the race whether the win was a relief.
“Yes in a way,” he said. “Maybe it kicks in a bit later but yeah, maybe just a confirmation that if you keep doing what you do…
“[There are] moments where you know that things are wrong and you need to make changes but lately I didn’t feel that any big changes are necessary. In that regard, it’s a confirmation but it’s not like ‘finally I can breathe again’. It’s not like I felt in a wrong and bad place. I knew that I have
to pull through and go through it myself.”
As for answering his critics, he said: “Maybe less satisfying than you think. It wasn’t like we were lacking speed or anything. Recently, I think there was nothing wrong in general. Things weren’t maybe falling in place, plus obviously I messed up in the race in Monza, that’s my mistake.
“I’ve been around now for a long, long time and yeah, it’s just how the tide turns sometimes. I have the highest expectation on myself and I’m not happy when I’m not delivering what I know I can.
“Certainly I had moments this year when I was struggling to just get it out. So, I know that I can improve from there, and I can’t be happy with that. But equally I know that it wasn’t as bad or disastrous as maybe then people put it together.”
It remains to be seen whether this victory will do anything to stem the tide Vettel is facing in the challenge of Leclerc at Ferrari, for while he drove well to seize victory when the chance to do so was provided to him, in many ways the ‘wrong’ Ferrari won at Marina Bay on Sunday.
It was Leclerc who took a brilliant pole, with an extrovert and acrobatic lap in which he danced with disaster against the walls to snatch top spot from Vettel, who was ahead after the first runs in final qualifying and who also fell behind Lewis Hamilton.
And it was Leclerc who led from the start and who should have been able to control the race on a track on which overtaking is close to impossible among closely matched cars.
But Ferrari admitted to catching themselves out with what is known as the ‘undercut’, when a car stopping first benefits from the pace provided by fresh tyres to gain a place.
