Vettel reveals what he needs to beat Hamilton

Sebastian Vettel believes he must win all six remaining races in 2018 if he is to beat Lewis Hamilton in their race for respective fifth world drivers' titles. Ferrari's strategic error denied Vettel any hope of winning the Singapore Grand Prix, dropping the German 40 points adrift of race-winner Hamilton in the championship.

Hamilton has delivered a classic mid-season surge in form to take control of the title race, securing four wins in the last five races, despite Vettel entering each of them as favourite.

Errors on the track and pit wall in Germany, Hungary, Italy and Singapore have seen Vettel's hopes of a first title with Ferrari grow thinner by the week.

Vettel will win the title by two points of he wins the remaining races and Hamilton follows him home each time and the German wants to leave nothing to chance.

"Obviously it's not great when you come to the end of the championship and you're losing points rather than making up points, but we still have a lot of races left and some time to go," says Vettel.

A 40-point lead with 6 races left

Can @LewisHamilton be caught? ????

#SingaporeGP ???????? #F1 pic.twitter.com/LH7hIi1Ttg — Formula 1 (@F1) September 16, 2018

"I think it's pretty straight forward that if we win every race from now, we're safe. So that's what we need to aim for."

Vettel was pitted early for ultrasoft tyres at Marina Bay, a move which soon backfired as Hamilton and Max Verstappen covered him with soft-tyre strategies that limited the German to hold on for third, despite passing the Red Bull for second place on the opening lap.

"It wasn't looking too bad," explains Vettel. "We had a good first lap and we tried something – being aggressive – and it didn't work and we ended up finishing third.

"Once we lost that second place, it's clear that we just need to try and figure out how to make it to the end with those tyres – 45 laps or so. It was a long way.

"Looking back, there's something we missed. But at the time I guess it felt like the right thing to do.

"We went for it, we tried, but it didn't work. If it works, then it's great. It didn't work, it's not great. Simple as that."

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