Vettel 'meltdowns' could be costly - Webber

Mark Webber says his former team-mate Sebastian Vettel remains prone to "flashes of meltdown", perhaps giving an indication as to the Australian's prediction for the 2018 title race. Webber and Vettel were team-mates at Red Bull for five years - encompassing the German's four world drivers' title triumphs.

Vettel missed out on the championship to Lewis Hamilton in 2017 after crashing into Max Verstappen and Ferrari colleague Kimi Raikkonen in Singapore, setting off a chain of events that saw Hamilton take control as he routinely dropped points.

It followed his remarkable decision to bang wheels under the safety car with Hamilton at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix earlier that year.

With Ferrari and Mercedes locked in a battle for supremacy, Webber says Vettel is unlikely to enjoy the kind of dominance that he has typically enjoyed for the majority of his 51 grand prix wins, perhaps putting the strength of his eight-point championship lead into question.

"[Vettel] does have flashes of a meltdown," Webber told the official Formula 1 podcast 'Beyond the Grid'.

"Sebastian has had those and does have those. I think he has a plan and often these meltdowns are outside our normal routine of a grand prix. So: Safety Cars.

"Abu Dhabi [in 2012] he's been off behind the Safety Car, hitting DRS boards. We saw Azerbaijan.

"So it's amazing how he has this maximum intense focus and concentration that he can do. Winning off pole off the front, breaking the DRS, that was his signature punch. He was deadly with that.

"But as soon as there was another complication that became a little more tricky."

Webber recounted a similar incident at the 2007 Japanese Grand Prix, in which Vettel smashed his Toro Rosso into the bac of the Red Bull man under the Safety Car in pouring rain.

It cost both drivers dearly as they were running second and third at the time.

"There was podium for sure, which was unheard of," Webber said.

"Red Bull and a Toro Rosso on the podium together, this was like, never been done before.

"I pulled up beside Lewis in the last sector saying, mate, the gap to the Safety Car's ginormous.

"I was looking at him saying come on, the lights are still on, it's not like we're doing a restart, we're still under Safety Car and he was pulling a long way back and mucking around so I pulled up beside him.

"The next minute, boom. Behind the Safety Car [Vettel] just absolutely harpooned the back of me, Sebastian and I went out. I know Seb was bawling his eyes out after that, he was shattered."