Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari disappointment may have been caused by 'thousands of factors', feels his former Red Bull race engineer

Sebastian Vettel's former race engineer at Red Bull feels that there were many reasons for the loss the German suffered after leaving the team and moving to Ferrari. While Vettel's driving skills were good enough to win another championship, the cars that Ferrari provided were not good enough. At least, this is what Guillaume Rocquelin believes. He told Motor Sport:

"There’s thousands of factors that we don’t know about [at Ferrari]. I just think one thing we know for sure: There’s a really big difference between somebody who’s been four-times world champion, and someone who’s won a couple of races in terms of approach and attitude."

Sebastian Vettel, after winning four consecutive World Championships with Red Bull, moved to Ferrari. Though the change in engine regulations did not affect his driving, his stint with the team wasn't as impressive as before.

It was extremely hard for him to beat Lewis Hamilton, whose dominance with Mercedes was all over the grid. Ferrari was still developing a car that was fast enough to win the championship. Rocky believes that having a slower car was one of the reasons that let Vettel's confidence down later.

“Sebastian is looking for things in the car to win the world championship. He knows what it takes. When the ingredients aren’t there, it must be quite difficult to motivate yourself and produce the results that you need to finish fourth or fifth, which is not what he’s after in his career.”

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Rocky explains how Sebastian Vettel's pace helped with tyre management

Sebastian Vettel's raw pace was extremely fast relative to all the drivers on the grid during his prime with Red Bull. While this helped him win multiple races while establishing his dominance, it also helped him in other ways.

With a fast raw speed, there were fewer obstacles and fewer battles with other drivers. This, in turn, helped him with his tire management. After refuelling was banned for the cars, the increased fuel load made it harder for other drivers to maintain their tires as well as the German. Rocky believes that this was a big reason for his success.

“One thing that always helps [is that] he was really quick. If you’re quick and a second faster than everybody else, you know that if you drive 80 percent and you’re only half-a-second faster than everybody else, then your tyres are going to save themselves. You’re in the lead, there’s nobody racing you. If you mind traffic and things like that, it just comes naturally. I think speed was everything, then the other things just come with it.”

Although Sebastian Vettel was still fast enough, Ferrari failed to deliver him a car that was capable of competing against the likes of Mercedes. The 2018 season was the last time Vettel was a contender for a fifth World Championship, but ended the season behind Hamilton.