Formula 1: The 2018 championship battle is effectively over

With six races to go, the 2018 Formula 1 driver championship has not been mathematically secured. But make no mistake about it; the battle is effectively over.

With six races remaining on the 21-race 2018 Formula 1 schedule, a total of 150 points are still on the table for each driver since race wins are worth 25 points. The championship has by no means been mathematically secured.

Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport’s Lewis Hamilton leads Scuderia Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel by 40 points (281 to 241) in the driver standings heading in the 16th race of the season, the Russian Grand Prix, so Vettel is still mathematically eligible to beat his British rival to his fifth career championship.

Ferrari have made many strides to catch four-time defending constructor champions Mercedes this season. There is no doubt about it. In fact, it can be argued that they have passed them on several fronts, including outright pace.

But at this point, it doesn’t matter. The 2018 championship battle, for all intents and purposes, is over. Hamilton, not Vettel, is set to join Juan Manuel Fangio as a five-time Formula 1 champion by the time the 2018 season concludes.

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Why? Vettel has been too mistake-prone throughout the entire season while Hamilton has had just one bad result, which took place as a result of a mechanical issue.

Vettel has failed to capitalize in numerous races during which he has had a faster car than Hamilton while Hamilton has been opportunistic race after race and has not thrown away great results like his championship rival has. In simpler terms, Vettel has not dealt well with pressure this year, and with time ticking down until the 2018 champion is crowned, the odds that this will change are extremely small.

Ferrari had the car to beat in the German Grand Prix. After taking the pole position for the race, Vettel crashed with a comfortable lead with 16 laps to go and Hamilton went on to win it, creating a 38-point swing in his favor over the 31-year-old German.

Ferrari supposedly had the car to beat in the Hungarian Grand Prix. But the 33-year-old Briton took the pole position and dominated the race while Vettel finished in second place.

Ferrari supposedly had the car to beat in the Italian Grand Prix as well. After a front-row lockout, they were poised to establish themselves as the top team in Formula 1, and Vettel was poised to establish himself as the driver to beat.

But after starting in second place alongside teammate Kimi Raikkonen, who is still searching for his first victory in over five years, Vettel spun out on the first lap. Hamilton won the race ahead of him in fourth after starting in third.

Mercedes were supposedly set to struggle in the Singapore Grand Prix as well, at least relative to Ferrari. But Hamilton qualified on the pole position for the race with what has been described as arguably the best lap in Formula 1 history, and he went on to dominate. Vettel finished in third place.

Hamilton has finished in the top two in each of the last six races, and he has won four of the last five. Even if he does not win any of the remaining six races of the season, he will win the championship by finishing in second place in all six of them as long as Vettel does not win all six of them.

With second place finishes being worth 18 points, Hamilton would lose seven points per race to Vettel if Vettel wins all six of the season’s final six races. But even this would only allow Vettel to win the championship by a mere two points.

Vettel has won just five races this season, so winning an additional six races in a row over a driver who does not cave in to pressure is next to impossible.

Translation: the championship battle is effectively over. Congratulations to Lewis Hamilton on (pretty much) winning his fifth career Formula 1 championship and trailing only the legendary seven-time champion Michael Schumacher on the all-time Formula 1 titles list.

When will Lewis Hamilton ultimately mathematically secured in the 2018 Formula 1 driver championship to become just the third five-time champion in the history of the sport?