Hamilton vs Vettel: How F1's title fight is shaping up to be a classic

Formula 1 fans old and new have been treated in 2018, with Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel embroiled in one of the most intense title races of all time. No fewer than five times has the championship lead changed hands across the opening 12 races of the campaign. Rob Watts charts the fight so far, and looks ahead to the battle to come.

This year marks the first time in Formula 1 history that two four-time world champions have gone head to head in the same season, with the stakes raised further as both Hamilton and Vettel aim to equal the great Juan Manuel Fangio’s record of five drivers’ titles.

While Vettel played down their rivalry at the start of the year, Hamilton began turning the screw, declaring that he wanted another close fight on track as it would be a “more painful” way to beat his rival.

FIRST BLOOD TO VETTEL

From the first race in Australia, it was clear that the two would once again be adversaries on and off track, and Vettel walked away with the season-opening spoils for the second year running.

Hamilton led the opening 18 laps from pole, but a blunder by his Mercedes team under the virtual safety car allowed Vettel to snatch victory and strike the first blow in their championship fight.

At the next round in Bahrain, Hamilton drove a combative race to rise from ninth to third after a grid penalty.

Pole-sitter Vettel was lured into a strategic battle with Hamilton’s teammate Valtteri Bottas, converting an unlikely one-stop strategy to win the race with a marathon 39-lap stint on the soft tyre and build a 17-point lead after just two rounds.

On pole for the second consecutive race, Vettel once again looked to have the edge in China as Hamilton battled with setup issues throughout the weekend.

Bottas undercut Vettel to snatch the lead after the first round of pitstops, but the race was flipped on its head when a safety car meant the Red Bulls would finish the race on much fresher tyres than those ahead.

Unfortunately for Vettel, Max Verstappen’s exuberance got the better of him when his ambitious passing attempt at the hairpin sent both drivers into a spin.

Vettel dropped to eighth while Hamilton climbed to fourth. It was a stroke of luck for the 2017 champion, who would have surely finished behind both Verstappen and Vettel had the pair not collided.

Drivers' standings after China

1. Vettel - 54
2. Hamilton - 45

HAMILTON BOUNCES BACK

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Hamilton’s six-race winless streak - stretching back to the US Grand Prix in October - finally ended in Azerbaijan, but his victory owed much to good fortune.

Vettel led most of the race before the Red Bulls wiped each other out, resulting in a safety car that handed the lead to Bottas - who had stayed out waiting for chaos on Baku's closely walled circuit.

When racing resumed with four laps remaining, Vettel saw his chance to retake the lead from Bottas but locked up and overshot the first corner, allowing both Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen to pass.

A lap later, Hamilton inherited the most unlikely win when Bottas ran through debris and instantly shredded his right-rear tyre.

Looking almost embarrassed to have won, Hamilton said afterwards: “It feels odd to be up here, but I have got to take it. It was an untidy race for me.”

Normal service was resumed in Spain as a textbook Hamilton pole lap laid the foundations for a dominant win, with Vettel only fourth, having been forced to abandon a one-stop strategy through tyre wear.

Back-to-back victories had catapulted Hamilton into the lead of the championship, and with the momentum in his favour, he predicted his Barcelona win could be the “turning point” in his season.

Damage limitation was in order at the following round in Monaco and Hamilton was happy to walk away with third place from a track Mercedes had expected to struggle at.

In a race Hamilton described as “the most boring ever”, Vettel spent much of it staring at Daniel Ricciardo’s gearbox as the Red Bull man survived car trouble to complete a lights-to-flag win.

Drivers' standings after Monaco

1. Hamilton 110
2. Vettel 96

PENALTIES AND POWER UNITS

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As momentum continued to swing back and forth between the two, Hamilton’s lead was slashed to just a single point after a disappointing performance in Canada.

Hamilton endured mechanical gremlins en route to fifth place, while Vettel looked unflappable in the Ferrari as he cruised to his third win of the season.

After the disappointment of seeing Vettel win with relative ease, Hamilton called upon Mercedes to up their game and predicted that Ferrari would soon ‘falter’ as the pressure intensified.

Kicking off F1’s first ever ‘triple-header’ was the Circuit Paul Ricard in France, where Hamilton made the most of Mercedes' power unit upgrade - originally planned for Montreal - to take pole, with Vettel third.

After a difficult couple of races, Hamilton’s afternoon went according to plan as he survived an early safety car restart to regain top spot with a comfortable win.

Vettel’s weekend, in contrast, was not so smooth. He clumsily rear-ended Bottas on the opening lap, earning a five-second penalty and a trip to the pits for repairs.

He recovered well to finish fifth, but Hamilton was back on top as the championship lead traded places once again. Frustratingly for Vettel, it was the second time he’d lost the lead through his own error.

There was another twist in Austria as the usually bulletproof Mercedes team remarkably suffered a double retirement, handing the advantage back to Vettel, who came home third behind Verstappen and teammate Raikkonen.

An incorrect call by Mercedes strategist James Vowles had dropped Hamilton from the lead to fourth, and he was later passed on track by Vettel before a fuel pump failure brought a premature end to his race, compounding what he described as his "worst race for a very, very long time".

Drivers' standings after Austria

1. Vettel 146
2. Hamilton 145

FROM HERO TO ZERO

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Hamilton and Vettel traded fierce blows at each other’s home race, both making headlines for very different reasons.

First up, a trip to Great Britain and Silverstone, where home hero Hamilton was on the hunt for a fifth straight win, and record-breaking sixth in total.

However, his weekend quickly unravelled as a first-lap collision with Raikkonen dropped him to the rear of the field, while Vettel took his opportunity to win on Hamilton’s home turf with a bold late move on Bottas.

Spurred on by the home crowd, Hamilton fought back superbly to salvage second place, but his championship hopes had been dented, and he later questioned Ferrari’s “interesting tactics” in reference to Raikkonen’s nudge.

Vettel’s joy was evident on team radio after the race, aiming a dig at Hamilton as he celebrated with his engineer: “We did it at their home, now we take the English flag and hang it in Maranello... Yes!".

Confidence was understandably high heading into his home race in Germany two weeks later, and it must have been through the roof as Vettel lined up on pole with Hamilton only 14th after a hydraulic failure in qualifying.

Yet to win at Hockenheim in his F1 career, Vettel looked on course to finally end that sequence by the time rain arrived with 25 laps to go, but Hamilton - who had worked his way up to fourth - piled pressure on in the greasy conditions with a string of rapid laps.

As the rain intensified, Vettel misjudged his braking point approaching the Sachs Kurve and slid off into the gravel, furiously punching his steering wheel in despair.

Hamilton moved into the lead as Bottas and Raikkonen both pitted, but only after abandoning a late call to pit himself following a frenzied radio exchange with race engineer Pete Bonnington.

What began as damage limitation ended in one of the most remarkable and surprising victories of Hamilton's F1 career, but it was Bonnington who summed it up best at the flag, reminding him that “miracles do happen”.

In the space of 24 hours, Vettel’s eight-point lead had become a 17-point deficit, and for the third time this season he’d lost the lead of the championship as a direct result of his own mistake.

Drivers' standings after Germany

1. Hamilton 188
2. Vettel 171

IT NEVER RAINS BUT IT POURS

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With one race remaining before the break, it was crucial for Vettel to fight back in Hungary, but that would be no easy task at a circuit where the Mercedes driver had won five times previously.

A freak downpour during qualifying played perfectly into Hamilton’s hands as he stormed to a 77th career pole while Vettel could manage only fourth - his lowest grid position of the season after topping both Q1 and Q2.

Saturday’s soaking gave way to blistering sunshine for race day as Hamilton won a tense strategic battle to further extend his championship lead. For Vettel, another error cost him a shot at victory.

Having stretched out his opening stint on soft tyres, Ferrari allowed Vettel to hit traffic and then botched his pit-stop, leaving him behind Bottas, who played a "sensational wingman" role to hold up the German and waste his softer, fresh tyres.

Vettel eventually reclaimed second, but it was too late to catch Hamilton, who heads into the summer break with the largest lead he’s ever had at this stage of an F1 season.

Drivers' standings after Germany

1. Hamilton 213
2. Vettel 189

A CLASSIC IN THE MAKING

Predicting the outcome of this championship is no easy task and as the momentum has ebbed and flowed between the sport’s two leading stars, the psychological battle continues to be just as fascinating as the on-track scrap.

Vettel and Ferrari finally have the machinery to end their 11-year title drought, but time and time again they've managed to clutch mediocre finishes from the jaws of victory when the pressure has been on.

Hamilton may not have the dominant car he once had, but his tactical nous and streetwise qualities have ensured he remains the man to beat.

If the first 12 races are anything to go by, this season’s championship fight is shaping up to be a classic.