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Sebastian Vettel - a four-time world champion - and Scuderia Ferrari - the most successful constructor on the grid, was a match made in heaven. However, at the end of the 2020 season, the two entities went their separate ways without a single championship triumph.
Why did that happen? Why was a combination that had so much potential fail to achieve the desired results? On that note, here's a look at reasons why the Sebastian Vettel-Ferrari combination turned out to be a failure, and who was to blame for it:
#1 Mercedes was a well-oiled machine
For a different team to win the title, it has to beat the defending champions. At the time when Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari were trying to do so, they were doing it against Mercedes. That was arguably the biggest reason for their failure, as the Mercedes-Lewis Hamilton combination was a well-oiled machine.
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They had the best engine on the grid, and the team worked like clockwork. With Niki Lauda and Toto Wolff at the helm, there wasn't room for too much drama, and everyone knew their roles. Lewis Hamilton, one of the best drivers on the grid, drove a Mercedes that was more or less quicker than the Ferrari Vettel had at his disposal.
In the rare instances when Vettel had a car as good or better than Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton had the support of an experienced campaigner in Niki Lauda who guided the team when things didn't go their way.
Vettel, meanwhile, was on his own, as his team just didn't have anyone who he could turn to when things went south. Mercedes were more than a worthy adversary that covered all their basics, and exposed Ferrari's shortcomings when things got intense.
That was evident in the way Ferrari imploded against the sustained pressure built by Mercedes and Hamilton in the second half of the 2017 and 2018 seasons.
#2 Ferrari suffered from periodic political implosions
It's not an understatement to say that the biggest enemy for Ferrari has always been Ferrari. The team has traditionally been a political hot mess, and more often than not, that has cost the team on track. That was the case when Sebastian Vettel was part of the team as well.
The team was under severe pressure to perform all the time, and because of that pressure, the team imploded more often than not. When Vettel was part of the team, Ferrari had the ruthless presence of Sergio Marchionne behind the scenes, demanding results and exerting unnecessary pressure.
When that was not at the forefront, the Ferrari team principal was busy fighting off internal political battles to keep his seat. The worst example in this regard came in the 2018 season when Ferrari arguably had their best possible chance to beat Mercedes. However, the Italian team spectacularly imploded in the second half of the season.
Maurizio Arrivabene openly criticised the technical director Mattia Binotto for the lack of upgrades the team brought to Suzuka. It was later revealed that Arrivabene and Binotto were involved in an internal power struggle at Ferrari that culminated in Binotto taking Arrivabene's place for the 2019 season.
That derailed Ferrari's championship campaign; the initiative was handed to Mercedes, and the German team never looked back. If the team had a more stable environment, Ferrari might have put together a much better challenge against Mercedes in both 2017 and 2018. However, that was not to be.
#3 Sebastian Vettel didn't know how to handle the internal politics at Ferrari
Sebastian Vettel's association with Ferrari was far too emotional for him to ever succeed. He was a Ferrari fan before he even became a Ferrari driver, and that impacted his performances. Vettel is not dissimilar to Michael Schumacher in nature, but the two men differed in how they went about solving the Ferrari puzzle.
Vettel went to Ferrari with the idea of trying to win the title by doing whatever he could do to help the team. If there was any place where he could make a difference, he would help.
So much so that Vettel became the spokesperson for the team. He made it a point to represent himself as the team, and when something went wrong, he was the shield. While that made him popular in the team, it also exposed him to the political side of Ferrari, which was often a handful to manage for anyone.
At the end of the day, Vettel had too much on his plate while Lewis Hamilton had a singular job of turning up on the track and driving his car as best he could. As a result, Vettel made errors that he had not made during his stint with Red Bull.
The errors like the one in Germany in 2018 or the one at Monza were not common for Vettel during his Red Bull days. One of the reasons why that happened was because the German just had too much on his plate.
Compare that to Michael Schumacher, and one can see why Vettel failed while the latter succeeded. Schumacher was completely shielded from the Italian press and Ferrari politics by Ross Brawn and Jean Todt. That helped him to do what he did best - drive a Formula 1 car to the best of his ability.
Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel was a combination that was too good to be true. A young four-time world champion joining Ferrari meant the German was almost destined to rewrite history. However, as we have seen so many times in the past, driving with Ferrari is one thing, winning with them is quite another. Just ask Fernando Alonso, Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell, and many other Formula 1 legends.
Sebastian Vettel had a dream of emulating his childhood hero Michael Schumacher, but sadly for him, the Ferrari dream remained unfulfilled for him.
