Formula 1: Will Sebastian Vettel win six consecutive races?

Will four-time Formula 1 champion Sebastian Vettel win six consecutive races to close out the 2018 Formula 1 season like he has his sights set on doing?

Four-time Formula 1 champion Sebastian Vettel recently stated that his goal is to win each of the final six races on the 2018 Formula 1 schedule. The Scuderia Ferrari driver currently trails fellow four-time champion Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport by 40 points (281 to 241) in the driver standings.

If Vettel wins each of the final six races of the season, he will score 150 points, and the highest amount of points that Hamilton will be able to score is 108, meaning that Vettel will win his fifth career Formula 1 championship over Hamilton by at least two points.

It’s that simple: if Vettel wins the final six races of the season, he will be crowned champion regardless of what Hamilton does.

Here is what the 31-year-old German had to say about winning each of the final six races of the 2018 season, according to ESPN.

"“I think it’s pretty straightforward, if we win every race from now we are safe. So that is what we need to aim for.”"

But will Vettel win each of the remaining six races of the season?

If you came here for the short answer, here it is: NO.

If you came here for a logical explanation, here it is — although, at this point, I’m not sure why you’d need one considering the fact that the championship battle is effectively over.

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Through the first 15 races of the season, Vettel has earned five victories. He won the first two races of the season, the Australian Grand Prix and the Bahrain Grand Prix, as well as the Canadian Grand Prix, the British Grand Prix and the Belgian Grand Prix.

This is the case despite the fact that more often than not, Ferrari have had faster cars than Mercedes. Vettel has thrown away the opportunity to win a number of races this season as a result of costly driver errors, most notably his crash in the German Grand Prix that took place while he held a comfortable lead with 16 laps remaining and resulted in a 38-point swing in favor of Hamilton. Ferrari have cost him a few victories as well as a result of bad pit strategy.

Hamilton, meanwhile, rarely makes mistakes, and he is almost always opportunistic when it comes to capitalizing on the mistakes made by his championship rival.

The fact that Vettel hasn’t even earned six victories through the season’s first 15 with the speed that he has had shows that it will be next to impossible for him to win six consecutive races to close out the season. He has not won six consecutive races since he won the final nine races of the 2013 season.

The final six races of the 2018 season are, in order, the Russian Grand Prix, the Japanese Grand Prix, the United States Grand Prix, the Mexican Grand Prix, the Brazilian Grand Prix and the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Vettel has never won the Russian Grand Prix nor the Mexican Grand Prix. His most recent victories in the Japanese Grand Prix, the United States Grand Prix and the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix took place in the 2013 season. He did manage to win the Brazilian Grand Prix last year for the first time since he won it in the 2013 season.

Outscoring Hamilton by 40 points in these six races will be a tall task for Vettel. It will be an even taller task for him to do so by winning all six of them.

Does Sebastian Vettel have any chance whatsoever to win all six of the remaining races on the 2018 Formula 1 season to become a five-time Formula 1 champion before Lewis Hamilton does? His quest is set to begin on Sunday, September 30 with the Russian Grand Prix. Be sure to tune in to ESPN2 for the live broadcast of that race from Sochi Autodrom in Sochi, Krasnodar Krai, Russia beginning at 7:10 a.m. ET.