Are Sebastian Vettel's F1 title hopes over?

Sebastian Vettel lost even further ground to Lewis Hamilton in the title battle at the Singapore Grand Prix, and now sits 40 points behind with six races and at most 150 points remaining.

Vettel entered this weekend’s race needing to avoid further mistakes after what happened in Baku, France, Austria, Germany and Italy.

Those five incidents alone have cost him a potential 60 points with the most costly one being in Hockenheim, where he spun out of the race while leading.

With a 30-point deficit to Hamilton entering Singapore, Vettel needed a response and a weekend free of errors.

The twisty 23-corner Marina Bay Street Circuit seemed the perfect spot for Vettel to re-instigate his fading title challenge with the German having won the event four times in the last eight visits.

Meanwhile, Hamilton and Mercedes have struggled at Singapore in the past and weren't expecting great things heading into the weekend.

The big question was if Vettel could rise to the occasion or once more be undone by errors.

F1 Grand Prix of Singapore

Unfortunately, it proved to be the latter with Ferrari this time being the ones responsible.

After qualifying only third on Saturday, Vettel overtook Max Verstappen for second place in the opening lap and chased Hamilton for the rest of the first stint.

Although Vettel’s progress was soon undone by Ferrari, who elected to bring him in a lap earlier to undercut Hamilton with the ultrasofts.

But Vettel instead returned out on to the track briefly stuck behind the yet-to-pit Force India of Sergio Perez and, to compound his misery, the lost time meant the German yielded second back to Verstappen.

Besides that, Ferrari’s gamble to put Vettel on ultrasofts meant that he had to drive conservatively for the rest of the race and ended up nearly 40 seconds behind winner Hamilton.

The Englishman has won seven races in 2018 and he’s now got one hand on a fifth world championship.

F1 Grand Prix of Singapore

Can Vettel turn it around?

Six races and 150 points are what’s left for Vettel now as we head into the final stages of the title showdown.

The pressure on Vettel to win Ferrari its first drivers’ championship in over 10 years must be immense, and may have influenced the four-time World Champion’s recent mistakes.

While the 31-year-old struggles, Hamilton has barely put a foot wrong this season and is odds-on to become only the third driver in F1 history to win a fifth world title after Juan Manuel Fangio and Michael Schumacher.

Despite the gap though, recent history shows that things may not be over just yet for Vettel as he is no novice in playing catch-up in a title fight.

In 2010, the then-Red Bull driver came back from a 31-point deficit in the final six races to become the youngest ever world champion at 23 years old.

Vettel repeated a similar feat in 2012 when he overcame a 39-point gap in the final seven races to beat Fernando Alonso to a third world title.

F1 Grand Prix of Brazil

The 31-year-old’s Ferrari has kept a performance edge over Mercedes since the British Grand Prix in July.

Now Vettel and Ferrari need to put the errors aside and beat Hamilton and Mercedes at the Russian Grand Prix in two weeks time.

While Vettel has never won at Sochi, he needs the 25 points to keep hopes of a fifth world title alive.

For now at least though, a first drivers’ title since 2013 remains a possibility for Vettel heading into the final six races.