Formula 1: Plain and simple, Lewis Hamilton is better than Sebastian Vettel

The Italian Grand Prix made one thing clear. Simply put, Lewis Hamilton is better than his four-time Formula 1 champion counterpart Sebastian Vettel.

Scuderia Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel entered Ferrari’s home race, the Italian Grand Prix, in a familiar position. He was riding a wave a momentum that he picked up as a result of dominating the previous Formula 1 race. In this case, he had just dominated the Belgian Grand Prix.

Entering the 14th race of the 21-race 2018 season, Vettel trailed Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport’s Lewis Hamilton by 17 points in the driver standings (231 to 214). Prior to the Belgian Grand Prix, the gap from Hamilton to Vettel was 24 points (213 to 189).

After Vettel’s dominant performance in the Belgian Grand Prix during which he led all 44 of the race’s laps after blowing by race polesitter Hamilton on the opening lap, it was clear that Ferrari had the fastest cars, especially on the power-heavy circuits, which is what Autodromo Nazionale Monza, the host track of the Italian Grand Prix, is.

So nobody was surprised when Ferrari locked out the front row of their home race, with Kimi Raikkonen starting on the pole position and Vettel starting in second place. It was expected that they would then go on to dominate the race, likely with Vettel taking the checkered flag for his sixth victory of 2018.

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But was anyone really surprised when Vettel blew the race, which he has done a number of times this season, on the opening lap?

Heading into turn four of the 11-turn, 3.600-mile (5.793-kilometer) Autodromo Nazionale Monza road course in Monza, Italy, Hamilton attempted to pass Vettel on the outside. Vettel made contact with Hamilton’s car and spun out before falling to the back of the field. Meanwhile, Hamilton set his sights on Raikkonen and exchanged the lead with him twice before the pit stops, after which time Hamilton passed Raikkonen once again and held on for the race win, something that hardly anybody predicted that he would take in Monza.

Vettel rallied to finish in fourth place, but he did so in a race for which he was the overwhelming favorite. As a result, he fell 13 points farther behind Hamilton in the driver standings. With seven races to go this year, the 31-year-old German trails the 33-year-old Briton by 30 points (256 to 226).

But Vettel’s mistake in the Italian Grand Prix isn’t the first major mistake that he has made this season, as he seems to have continuously caved to the pressure of trying to beat Hamilton to his fifth career Formula 1 championship in moments that could very well have resulted in huge championship boosts for him this year.

Vettel’s crash while leading the German Grand Prix, which he entered after dominating the British Grand Prix, by a sizable margin with just 16 laps to go resulted in a 38-point swing in favor of Hamilton in itself, as it was this crash that allowed Hamilton to jump from fourth to first place and take the race win while Vettel failed to score any points.

In the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, which Vettel entered having won two of the season’s first three races and with a nine-point lead in the driver standings, he would have gone on to win had he not tried an overaggressive move to pass race leader Valtteri Bottas of Mercedes, which caused him to flat spot one of his tires and be passed by a number of drivers, including Hamilton.

Hamilton passed Vettel for second place and went on to win when one of Bottas’s tires went flat with under three laps to go, meaning Vettel would have been in a prime position to win had he stayed patient and either waited to try to pass Bottas in another corner or accepted second and simply been in the right place at the right time when Bottas experienced a flat tire just a few minutes later. Vettel finished in fourth.

In the French Grand Prix, which Vettel entered coming off of a dominant victory in the Canadian Grand Prix and with a one-point lead in the driver standings, he ruined his own race and the race of Bottas by being overaggressive and trying to pass him for second place at the start, which caused Bottas to spin out. Vettel’s car took damage, as did Bottas’s.

Vettel should be leading the driver standings right now, and by a sizable margin. There is no question about that given the fact that Ferrari have had the fastest cars this year.

Yet here Hamilton is, seemingly well on his way to tying Juan Manuel Fangio for second place on the all-time Formula 1 championships list behind seven-time champion Michael Schumacher once the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix rolls around at the end of November, if not before.

The fact that Hamilton’s mistake total pales in comparison to that of Vettel through the season’s first 14 races, resulting in him leading his rival by 30 points in the standings, shows that he is the better of the two drivers. It’s that simple.

So far this season, Hamilton’s only finish outside of the top five is his retirement in the Austrian Grand Prix, which came as a result of a fuel pressure issue. He has earned six victories and 11 podium finishes this year. Meanwhile, Vettel has finished as low as eighth place in the 13 races from which he has not been forced to retire so far this year. He has secured five victories and eight podium finishes.

Hamilton simply does not make nearly the amount of costly errors that Vettel does, and it is this fact, not because his car is faster, that illustrates why Hamilton continues to outperform Vettel. In many cases this year, Hamilton’s car hasn’t even been faster. He has only had the dominant car in three of his six victories so far in 2018, if that.

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Has Lewis Hamilton proven through the first 14 races of the 2018 Formula 1 season that he is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a better driver than fellow four-time Formula 1 champion Sebastian Vettel?

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