Formula 1: Has Sebastian Vettel already earned his final victory?

Sebastian Vettel’s most recent Formula 1 victory was his victory in last year’s Belgian Grand Prix. Could this end up being his final victory in the sport?

When Scuderia Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel passed Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport’s Lewis Hamilton on the opening lap of the 21-race 2018 Formula 1 season’s 13th race, the Belgian Grand Prix, at Spa-Francorchamps late last August before cruising to a dominant victory, it appeared as though he had retaken the position as the 2018 championship favorite.

But down the stretch, Vettel ended up struggling, and his championship chances faded due to a plethora of unforced errors. He ended up finishing 88 points (408 to 320) behind Hamilton in second place in the driver standings as he watched his British rival beat him to five career Formula 1 championships, leaving him in the runner-up position for the second consecutive season.

Vettel did not win a single race throughout the remainder of the 2018 season after his dominant Belgian Grand Prix victory, and the 2019 season has been even worse for him and Ferrari as a whole.

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Vettel did take the checkered flag ahead of the rest of the field in the season’s seventh race, the Canadian Grand Prix, two weeks ago, but Hamilton was awarded the victory due to the five-second time penalty that Vettel was issued for an “unsafe” reentry onto the track ahead of Hamilton in second place several laps earlier. Vettel was officially scored in second.

Ferrari attempted to have this call overturned via “right of review”, but the FIA denied their request to even review this penalty after nearly two weeks of nonstop discussion about it.

But instead of showing his frustration by proving his doubters wrong with a strong qualifying effort for the season’s eighth race, the French Grand Prix, the 31-year-old German had what was by far one of the worst qualifying sessions he has ever had not only during his five-year tenure at Ferrari but during his entire 13-year Formula 1 career.

Vettel qualified in seventh place for this race, three positions lower than the next highest Mercedes, Ferrari or Aston Martin Red Bull Racing driver (Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen in fourth) and four positions lower than teammate Charles Leclerc.

Both McLaren drivers, rookie Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz Jr., outqualified the four-time champion by qualifying in fifth and sixth place, respectively.

One word to describe Vettel’s qualifying session? Abysmal.

This leads to an even bigger question: has Vettel already earned his final Formula 1 victory?

Barring a massive shift of power atop the Mercedes-dominated sport, Ferrari’s chances to win a race before the 2019 season ends are average at best, even with 14 of the season’s 21 races having not yet been contested.

Even if they do have the chance to do so, the strength that Leclerc has shown in his first season driving for the Scuderia has been impressive, even given all the adversity that he has faced so far in 2019 through mechanical problems, unfavorable team orders, ridiculous strategy calls and more.

It would make sense for the team to start prioritizing the driver who many people believe can be the driver who wins Ferrari their next championship and their first since Kimi Raikkonen won the title 12 years ago in the 2007 season.

There are already rumors that Vettel may retire from Formula 1 after the 2019 season comes to an end, and he added fuel to these rumors with some of the comments he made after his Canadian Grand Prix victory was stripped from him. Even if he returns to Ferrari for the 2020 season, the 2020 season is a contract year for him, and a return to the team for the 2021 season does not seem all that likely from any angle at this point.

There are certain things in sports and racing that just wouldn’t seem at all plausible if you thought of them in the moment. The idea of Sebastian Vettel’s final Formula 1 victory having already taken place in last August’s Belgian Grand Prix is one of those ideas that if you would have suggested it at the time, you would have been criticized beyond belief.

But with Vettel now riding a 15-race win drought, a win drought that even includes a win that literally didn’t count, this idea seems nowhere near as far-fetched as it would have back then. I’d say that it seems nowhere near as fat-fetched now as it did back then, but you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who would have actually suggested it, much less believed it, at the time.