5 Title Contenders for the 2016 F1 Season

Sebastian Vettel

Vettel nearly won the Australian Grand Prix, with his pace let down by strategy

No stranger to the World Championship, the four-time title holder is the protege of F1’s most successful driver of all time – Michael Schumacher. He had his most successful days with Red Bull, with whom he won each of his titles, and the German is no slouch at Scuderia Ferrari.

Finishing nearly every race of 2015 on the podium, Vettel was perhaps only let down by an engine that Ferrari principal Maurizio Arrivabene described as “not as powerful” as Mercedes. This year, that engine has overcome that particular hurdle, although it is now faced with reliability issues the team did not have in 2015, while Mercedes has had no such issues.

The Ferrari does not lack in power, with Kimi Raikkonen setting the fastest time of winter testing, and doing well in Bahrain, while Vettel did exceedingly well in Australia; so much so that it was only strategy that lost him victory in Melbourne, despite Lewis Hamilton having started that race on pole.

If Ferrari can figure out the reliability issues that saw Kimi Raikkonen faced with a fire and Vettel’s exhaust ‘spitting metal’, there is no reason Ferrari cannot move back to the top of the grid, and given the talent of Vettel, perhaps the only barrier to him winning another championship.