Ferrari

How times change.

The race for a Ferrari seat was once an exclusive club, populated by established world champions and serial grand prix winners alike.

Only the truly premier drivers—and occasionally a couple just beneath the elite, depending on the team's stance on team orders—were in contention to represent the Prancing Horse in the pinnacle of motorsport.

Those without a title or two, countless race victories and plenty of podiums and pole positions to their name need not apply.

Such a system helped to preserve Ferrari's majesty, their status at the summit. It provided emerging racing drivers, Formula One drivers, with ambition, a purpose and a dream.

But now? That dream is within reach of too many.

Partly, but not entirely, as a result of the life-threatening injuries sustained in the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix by Jules Bianchi—who would have moved to Sauber for this season, continuing his natural progression to the Italian team, according to Sky Sports' Pete Gill—the struggle for a Ferrari seat is perhaps more intense than ever before.

Around a quarter of the current grid are part of the stampede to replace Kimi Raikkonen, who—despite team principal Maurizio Arrivabene's comments to Autosport's Glenn Freeman that "his future is in his hands"—appears increasingly likely to depart the Prancing Horse at the end of the current campaign.

It is not so much a reflection of the vast pool of talent in modern-day F1 as it is an indication of the current state of Ferrari, who, without a world title of any kind since 2008, are no longer the standard-setters and consequently seem more accessible than in previous years.

Yet the choice of driver to partner Sebastian Vettel, the four-time world champion, for 2016 and beyond will be a significant development in the recent history of Formula One.

The most qualified to succeed Raikkonen are three-times grand prix winner Daniel Ricciardo and Valtteri Bottas, who has secured seven podium finishes in the last 12 months. 

But the effect of signing Ricciardo and Bottas, as quick as they are, would be nothing compared to the impact on their current employers, Red Bull Racing and Williams respectively.

Losing Ricciardo—who recently told BBC Sport's Andrew Benson of his openness to a move—so soon after watching Vettel flee to Ferrari would be the latest blow to Red Bull in their swift fall from grace since their most recent title triumph in 2013.

A team who have long prided themselves on nurturing young talent would be developing that talent to the benefit of other, more established outfits, raising further questions over what Red Bull can realistically extract from F1 at a time when their continued involvement in the sport is far from certain.

Like Southampton Football Club, who have recently built a reputation for their ability to develop young players before selling them to larger clubs, Red Bull would be reduced to an academy, a mere feeder team, rendering their entire junior-driver program—including Red Bull's B-team, Scuderia Toro Rosso—meaningless.

It would be a similar situation if Williams were to be separated from Bottas, who has become the face of the team's resurgence since the beginning of 2014.

The Grove-based outfit are currently enjoying their most productive spell for over decade, but any hopes of recreating their title-winning exploits of years gone by would be extinguished if Williams were to lose one of their biggest assets, as it would confirm the team simply can't compete against powerhouses of the calibre of Ferrari and Mercedes in the current era.

Nico Hulkenberg, meanwhile, is very much the people's choice in the Ferrari fight, having been overlooked by leading teams for so long despite producing consistently strong performances for Williams, Sauber and Force India.

As noted in the aftermath of his victory in the Le Mans 24 Hours—one of the most tremendous feats in modern motor racing—earning a leading drive on the back of his Circuit de la Sarthe success could see Hulkenberg bridge the sizeable gap between F1 and the World Endurance Championship, teaching the sport an instructive lesson.

Arguably, the most compelling options available to Ferrari, however—and the two we should all fear—are a couple of Hulkenberg's team-mates, both former and current.

In a separate BBC Sport article, Benson claimed Ferrari are the subject of "pressure from their Mexican sponsors" to promote Esteban Gutierrez, the former Sauber driver and the Italian team's 2015 reserve, for next season.

While Gutierrez deserves another shot in F1, having been prevented the chance to showcase his true speed at Sauber, it is Mexico's current representative on the grid who could benefit from the sponsors' efforts.

Sergio Perez, once a member of Ferrari's young-driver scheme, is very much the dark horse in the tussle to replace Raikkonen, having recovered well from an underwhelming campaign at McLaren in 2013.

But despite faring well alongside Hulkenberg since last season, claiming Force India's first podium finish in five years, there is little doubt that Perez—in terms of talent and results—has not yet done enough to warrant a second opportunity with a front-running team.

And if the Prancing Horse do sign either Gutierrez or Perez, it would send a most alarming message throughout F1.

Even Ferrari, for all their history, heritage and 222 grand prix wins, are vulnerable to the money men.

Even Ferrari, in an era when small teams are struggling to survive, can succumb to the flood of pay drivers.

Even Ferrari, at a time when a brand of McLaren's calibre cannot attract a title sponsor, must prioritise pounds over prizes.

The process of replacing Raikkonen, if indeed that is the path Ferrari take, is not the lightbulb change many teams face when it comes to securing a new signing.

With a rare range of options and their shortlist longer—if a little weaker—than ever, Ferrari's decision, whoever the chosen one may be, will have repercussions on existing teams and Formula One itself.

No pressure, Maurizio.

Follow @OllieHarden

In the weeks ahead of last season's Austrian Grand Prix, the first in 11 years, Red Bull held a filming day at the track formerly known as the Osterreichring.

The company had spent countless funds and hours in an effort to resurrect a venue previously thought to have been consigned to the dustbin of history and, prior to the first Formula One race at the refurbished Red Bull Ring, they were keen to milk the occasion.

Red Bull's Home Race, the #AustrianGP, is Next Sunday!! [Pic: The Red Bull statue in the middle of the track] #F1 pic.twitter.com/v4sd8QChT7

— Sebastian Vettel (@FansOfSebVettel) June 15, 2014

But for Sebastian Vettel, the four-time world champion, this was so much more than an average publicity stunt, a wasted afternoon and a sponsor-pleasing exercise of nothingness.

It was the realisation of a lifelong dream.

Rather than simply asking Vettel to provide the commentary on a lap of the circuit, or ordering him to indulge in some typical Red Bull wackiness, the team arranged a car-swap with Gerhard Berger, one of the most recognisable Austrian drivers in a generation—providing a physical link between the Osterreichring and the Red Bull Ring.

As his former Toro Rosso team principal drove the German's 2012 title-winning RB8, Vettel finally had the chance to sit behind the wheel of a grand prix-winning Ferrari, the F1/87/88C Berger guided to victory at Monza in 1988.

After spending his childhood watching Michael Schumacher dominate with the Prancing Horse, finally Vettel was surrounded by scarlet red. Finally he could hold that steering wheel tightly within his grasp. Finally that power, all that power, was his.

Driving Berger's Ferrari offered Vettel a taste of history that was simply unavailable to him at Red Bull, a team who'd only risen to prominence just five years earlier, and it was clear—as Seb removed his crash helmet in the garage to reveal the broadest of grins and a pair of bulging eyes—that he was smitten.

He wanted more.

And his departure from Red Bull to join Ferrari—all that power, all that heritage—was announced around four months later.

The face of the first grand prix in Red Bull's own backyard a year ago, Vettel returns to Spielberg this weekend as an outsider, an enemy, but with the ability to nudge his former employers closer to the cliff edge of Formula One.

While Vettel has made a near-seamless transition to life at Ferrari—winning the Malaysian GP, securing four further podiums and finishing no lower than fifth—Red Bull's first Seb-less season since 2008 has been a tale of frustration and humiliation, defined by threats to quit the sport and their distasteful, public row with engine suppliers Renault. 

The French manufacturer's substandard power unit has been at the root of Red Bull's failure to reach the podium in the opening seven races of 2015, with Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat scoring just 54 points between them.

Their season took a turn for the worse last time out in Canada, where Kvyat was the only Renault-powered driver to score a point. It is set to slump to a whole new low in Austria, where the grand prix will come secondary to a peaceful protest.

As reported by Motorsport.com's Jonathan Noble, Red Bull will install new engines in their cars this weekend, meaning Kvyat and Ricciardo will start the team's home race at the rear of the grid.

Although, with the RB11 car unsuited to the Spielberg track and more favourable venues such as Silverstone and the Hungaroring fast approaching, there are valid sporting reasons behind the decision—there is little doubt the sacrifice is politically motivated.

The sight of the Red Bulls circulating at the back of the field with little hope of securing a credible result at their own circuit would send a symbolic, powerful message to Renault and F1 itself, showing the wider world how both had conspired to rip the soul from the most successful team of modern times.

The man behind the Red Bull empire, Dietrich Mateschitz, kickstarted the protest on Friday by telling Speed Week (h/t BBC Sport) how Renault had not only robbed his company of "time and money," but also "will and motivation," reiterating his quit threat by stating: "You can't force someone to stay when he wants to leave."

It was with that attitude that Red Bull greeted the news of Vettel's departure at Suzuka last season, with team principal Christian Horner telling Sky Sports, "If it's his desire to be somewhere else, it's not right for us to stand in his path," and explaining how the "lure of Ferrari" was difficult for the German to resist.

And while Ricciardo and Kvyat flounder at the back this weekend, as Red Bull and Renault take each other down, a united Vettel and Ferrari—who proved more than a match for reigning world champions Mercedes in FP2 in Austria, despite losing track time to technical glitches—will be fighting for victory.

Should Red Bull's favourite son win at a track that not too long ago was regarded as his natural habitat, setting the Prancing Horse free in the Styrian mountains, it would send a far stronger message than anything the home team themselves could muster. 

It would confirm Ferrari, woven into the very fabric of F1, will remain everlastingly successful and attractive to leading drivers.

And it would be the final insult to Red Bull, reinforcing the suspicion that the team's glory days, which were always going to be short-lived, are long gone.

It is rare to have home and away fixtures in a sport with the global reach of F1, but a Vettel victory upon his return to the Red Bull Ring is surely the only possible result in Austria.

Follow @OllieHarden

The qualifying session for this weekend's Canadian Grand Prix was always going to be one of the most important for some time for Sebastian Vettel.

The German's Ferrari team had managed to match and even better Mercedes, the reigning world champions, in racing conditions in the 2015 Formula One season, but in the opening six races, they had struggled to match the Silver Arrows' in terms of one-lap pace, with Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg sharing pole position.

Only twice, in the wet in Malaysia and under the lights in Bahrain, had Vettel managed to split the Mercedes pair in qualifying as Hamilton and Rosberg have consistently put Ferrari in their place: third place, better than the rest yet not quite fast enough to challenge, or be, the best.

Yet it felt as though that was going to change at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, a venue where straight-line speed is imperative, as the Prancing Horse became one of two manufacturers to spend the mysterious currency that is engine tokens in a bid to further improve their power unit.

As reported by F1 journalist Adam Cooper's personal blog, the Italian team spent three of their seven remaining tokens ahead of the Montreal event in what Vettel told the official Formula One website was an "aggressive" bid to close the gap to Mercedes and, with the German 28 points behind Hamilton in the championship, inject renewed energy into a title assault that was just beginning to lose its momentum.

It was with much anticipation, therefore, that one watched Ferrari make progress with their revised engine in Canada.

Vettel, for his part, appeared pleased with the plug-in-and-play updates to the internal combustion engine following Friday practice, telling Sky Sports' William Esler how "there was no easing in, we went flat out straight away" and "everything seemed to be working as expected."

As he ventured out for his first run of Q1, pole position, for the first time since the last of his four title-winning campaigns with Red Bull Racing in 2013, was a realistic possibility, but his session was ruined before the Prancing Horse had the chance to gallop.

According to Motorsport.com's Pablo Elizalde, an MGU-H issue left him trapped within the confines of the garage as his rivals hurled around the track.

Vettel returned to the circuit in the dying minutes of the session but, down on power and crippled by the very engine upon which his hopes were pinned, he was unable to set a competitive lap time and was duly eliminated at the first hurdle as his team-mate, Kimi Raikkonen, inherited Seb's usual third spot.

A missed opportunity? Perhaps, although the fact that the best lap produced by Raikkonen, even with a fully functioning car, was still 0.6 seconds slower than Hamilton's latest pole-setting time, as per the official F1 website, would suggest that Ferrari, on pure pace, remain firmly in Mercedes' shadow.

Instead, Vettel's qualifying failure illustrates the sad truth that the V6 turbo power units, first introduced at the beginning of last season, are more trouble than they're worth.

Ferrari's reliability record up until this weekend had been impeccable and it was telling, predictable even, that the team suffered their first notable problem on the race weekend immediately after they upgraded their power unit.

Such are the complexities and sensitivities of the hybrid engines, with their accompanying energy recovery systems, that the modern powertrains are extremely vulnerable, to the point where actions taken with the intention to improve them can, in fact, have the reverse effect.

The everlasting frustrations endured by Renault and Honda, who continue to lack both pace and reliability, are evidence of this, while Ferrari, in attempting to take a couple of steps forward, may have actually taken a slight step back.

It is one of the biggest flaws of the current engine formula and makes a mockery of the in-season development loophole discovered in 2015.

The move to let engine manufacturers develop their power units during the campaign was widely welcomed at the beginning of the year, giving the chasing pack a greater opportunity to reel in Mercedes and produce more competitive racing.

It is a plan that works in theory, but given the nature of the power units, with no guarantee that those developments will be immediately (if at all) successful, it risks disrupting, not aiding, a team's progress across a campaign.

Development tokens used by each manufacturer ahead of the #CanadianGP http://t.co/0VOrS0DY6S #F1 #Ferrari #Mercedes pic.twitter.com/z7QiFTppe8

— Sebastian Vettel (@FansOfSebVettel) June 2, 2015

The hazards linked to in-season development perhaps explains why Mercedes, according to a Sky Sports graphic, have refrained from spending any tokens thus far, resisting the temptation to meddle with their machinery, to fix something that simply isn't broken.

Although the team cannot be criticised for using the tools at their disposal, had Ferrari, with comfortably the second-best power unit in the 2015 field, taken a similar route, continuing to apply constant pressure on Mercedes rather than trying to go toe-to-toe with the world champions, there would have been little doubt that Vettel would have lined up third on the grid in Canada.

Once again, he would have been breathing down the necks of Rosberg and Hamilton and waiting to pounce on any mistakes up the road.

Instead, a mere points finish, as he told the team's official website, will suffice as Ferrari have landed in a ditch just as they reached for the sky.

Talk about make or break...

Follow @OllieHarden

Kimi Raikkonen is not a great qualifier. Despite the Finn's well-earned reputation as a quick driver, turning in that single fast lap on Saturday has never been at the top of his list of skills. Rather, it is his ability to perform on Sundays that has made his reputation.

Indeed, Raikkonen is the only driver on the grid to have been outqualified by his team-mate at all six races so far this year.

Following the Monaco Grand Prix, where Sebastian Vettel qualified third and Raikkonen was mired in sixth, Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene said, "If I have to give him some homework then he has to write 100 times 'I have to be better in qualifying'," per Autosport's Ian Parkes.

The only problem is there may not be much room for improvement.

The Iceman has started 218 grands prix in his career but only qualified on pole 16 times. Stirling Moss had the same number of poles in just 66 starts. 

Even in Raikkonen's two best seasons, 2005 and 2007, when he won a total of 13 times, he managed just eight poles. Nico Rosberg scored 11 pole positions just last year.

In those same two seasons, though, Raikkonen set 16 fastest laps during the races (and he has 41 over his career).

In Bahrain earlier this year, Raikkonen qualified fourth but set the fastest lap on his way to a second-place finish—his best performance since his return to Ferrari for 2014.

But why is Raikkonen a better racer than qualifier? He has often set the fastest lap during races, so why can't he just turn in quick laps all the time, including qualifying?

BBC pundit James Allen wrote on his personal website that, "Raikkonen has a conservative style as we know, which confers benefits in terms of tyre degradation in races, but quite likely the opposite when trying to find the peak grip in a slightly too hard or too cold tyre in qualifying."

That was certainly the case in his Bahrain performance, where Raikkonen took advantage of his fresher tyres at the end of the race. It also helps to explain Raikkonen's qualifying form since his Lotus comeback in 2012, with the quickly degrading rubber provided by Pirelli.

In 2012 and 2013, as you can see from the table below, Raikkonen was on par with Romain Grosjean—a solid driver, but no one's idea of a superstar. And in addition to the shutout Vettel is pitching this year, Fernando Alonso hammered Raikkonen in qualifying last season.

However, as previously noted, the gap between Raikkonen's qualifying and race pace existed even before Pirelli entered the sport—back when conserving tyres was not as important. 

In 2007, for example, Raikkonen's championship year, he was outqualified by his team-mate, Felipe Massa, at nine of 17 grands prix (Raikkonen's average qualifying position was 3.59, though, while Massa's was 3.88). The Brazilian also had six poles to Raikkonen's three.

In the races, those results were reversed. Raikkonen had six victories and Massa had three.

Two years earlier, in 2005, Raikkonen had a slightly larger gap to his team-mates (Juan Pablo Montoya for most of the season), with an average qualifying position of 4.11 to their 6.47. He was, however, outqualified by Pedro de la Rosa when the Spaniard filled in for an injured Montoya at the Bahrain Grand Prix—it was De la Rosa's first qualifying session in two-and-a-half years.

At this point, it should not be surprising that in both 2005 and 2007, as well as every year since his comeback, Raikkonen's average qualifying position is lower than his average finishing position in the races. (I suspect this would hold true for most, if not all of the other seasons of his career as well.)

No matter how you look at it, Raikkonen is just a better racer than he is a qualifier. But isn't that a good reputation to have? It is certainly better than the alternative—being viewed as a better qualifier than racer—which, if it is not already, should be called the Jarno Trulli Paradox.

After all, the points are scored on Sundays.

Meanwhile, no matter how much homework Professor Arrivabene assigns, he may have to live with Raikkonen's less-than-ideal performances on Saturday. Besides, the Iceman just became a father—he doesn't have time for homework.

Follow me on Twitter for updates when I publish new articles and for other (mostly) F1-related news and banter:

Follow @MatthewWalthert

It is going to happen at some point, Sebastian Vettel winning a Formula One championship with Ferrari. The question is: when?

Predictions are a dangerous game, particularly in a sport where it is difficult enough to forecast the winner of the next race, let alone a result one or more years down the road. Yet here we are, predicting not only that Vettel will add to his four titles, but the year he will do it.

And that year is 2016—next season.

As Vettel was winning four straight drivers' championships with Red Bull from 2010 to 2013, there were whispers he was only winning because he had a superior car and that he would be exposed if he moved to another team. Michael Schumacher, for example, Vettel's countryman and boyhood hero, won titles with two different teams, although he also benefited from superior machinery for most of those years.

But Vettel almost didn't need to make a move to be unmasked. Last year, his longtime team-mate Mark Webber was replaced by a younger, hungrier Australian, Daniel Ricciardo. The new Aussie promptly rearranged the established running order at Red Bull and consistently beat Vettel over the course of the season.

At the Japanese Grand Prix in September, Vettel surprisingly announced that he was leaving Red Bull at the end of the season. Team principal Christian Horner thought Ricciardo's pace had something to do with Vettel's decision, per the BBC's Andrew Benson. Perhaps he also had one eye on a Schumacher-style legacy.

In his first six races with Ferrari, Vettel has erased any doubt about his ability on the race track. In five of those races, he has beaten his new team-mate, Kimi Raikkonen, another world champion who struggled in 2014. Vettel also pulled off a shocking victory in Malaysia, demonstrating that the Maranello revival is ahead of schedule.

That trajectory is one reason why Vettel will win it all next year.

After the Malaysia win, Mercedes executive director Toto Wolff told the official F1 site, "It clearly shows that this year is not going to be an easy one for us—gone are the illusions of a walk in the park!" Since then, he has often reiterated his concern about Ferrari's pace.

At this point last season, Mercedes' Nico Rosberg had a 61-point lead over third-placed Fernando Alonso (the man Vettel replaced at Ferrari). Currently, Rosberg's team-mate Lewis Hamilton is just 28 points clear of Vettel.

Ferrari's improvement has been spectacular. They have already scored six podium finishes in 2015, three more than they did in all of 2014. Still, Ferrari are not quite close enough to challenge for a title this season, but 2016 will be different.

Mercedes still have a clear advantage, but eventually the law of diminishing returns will kick in and make it more difficult for the reigning champions to make significant improvements. The field will then start to close up, and Ferrari are at the head of the chasing pack.

According to the FIA, F1's governing body, Ferrari also started the season having used fewer engine tokens than Mercedes, meaning the Italian team have more room to upgrade their engine throughout the year.

Another reason to bet on Vettel for 2016 is that it may be Ferrari's best chance to win a title for the foreseeable future.

Consider this: After struggling with the new regulations for last year, Ferrari have sorted themselves out and are closing the gap. The regulations will be relatively stable through next season but bigger changes are on the horizon for 2017.

Maybe Ferrari will nail whatever changes do come down, but there is an equal chance that Mercedes or someone else will do a better job and the Scuderia will be playing catch-up again. Knowing that, perhaps Ferrari will push just that little bit extra to get a shot at the title in 2016.

Vettel's chances are also increased by Mercedes' refusal to name a No. 1 driver. By treating Hamilton and Rosberg equally and allowing them to race, there is always the potential that they will take crucial points from each other.

In 2007, McLaren tried a similar approach with Hamilton and Alonso, allowing Raikkonen to sneak in and steal the drivers' title by a single point.

Whether Ferrari admit it or not, Vettel is their No. 1 driver, the golden boy brought in to revive a downtrodden team. Raikkonen, on the other hand, despite his pedigree, has been warned by team principal Maurizio Arrivabene that his contract for next year is dependent on his performance for the rest of 2015, per ESPN F1's Laurence Edmondson.

Of course, none of this is a guarantee that Vettel will be champion again, next year or ever. But the signs are encouraging. Both he and Ferrari have rebounded from disastrous 2014 campaigns and are stalking the Mercs—still from a distance but slowly closing in.

Vettel in 2016 may not be a perfect prediction, but it has to be more accurate than Mercedes' strategy computers, right?

Follow me on Twitter for updates when I publish new articles and for other (mostly) F1-related news and banter:

Follow @MatthewWalthert

If Ferrari had been a little bolder (and dare we say, a little smarter), Sebastian Vettel might have won last weekend's Monaco Grand Prix.

On Lap 30 of the 78-lap race, the German was, according to the FIA television feed, roughly a second adrift of second-placed Nico Rosberg as the pit-stop window approached, close enough to perfect the undercut technique.

And Seb knew it.

"I'm close now," he told the team over the pit-to-car radio, per the same source, in that menacing way of his, encouraging the pit wall to do their thing, to exploit their lead-driver's good work at the first, only round of stops.

But Rosberg knew it too and, according to the FIA's Race Lap Analysis, upped his pace dramatically.

Having previously set times in the region of one minute, 21 seconds was producing laps as quick as 1:19.937, extending the gap, neutralising the threat of Vettel, as every lap passed by.

The Mercedes driver's sheer speed meant that when Ferrari eventually called Vettel into the pit lane on Lap 36, the chance had effectively gone.

Ferrari's hesitation, coupled with Vettel being stuck in traffic—Sky Sports' Ted Kravitz claimed the German lost 1.5 seconds behind the lapped Manor Marussia of Roberto Merhi—meant Rosberg retained second place by a relatively comfortable margin.

That, in turn, meant that when the second, most notable pit-related clanger of the day occurred on Lap 64 and Mercedes pitted Lewis Hamilton, the runaway leader, under safety-car conditions, it was Rosberg, not Vettel, who inherited first place and, ultimately, the race win.

Although Vettel, per the team's official website, insisted he was "very happy" with the runner-up spot, the nature of Ferrari's Monaco GP—when victory was there for the taking—epitomised why the Italian outfit and their drivers now seem willing to settle for the best-of-the-rest spot behind Mercedes in 2015.

Like Williams last season, Ferrari and Vettel—both starved of sustained success since '13—both appear to be less battle-hardened than their Mercedes rivals, who have now won 21 of a possible 25 races since the V6 turbo regulations were introduced at the start of 2014.

Just as Williams allowed potential grand prix victories to slip through their grasp in, for instance, Canada, Austria and even Abu Dhabi last year, Ferrari could be accused of missing opportunities in the opening six races of 2015.

In addition to the undercut undoing in Monte Carlo, Vettel made several mistakes in the Bahrain GP, finishing a distant fifth—the only race he had failed to reach the podium this season—when, had he driven cleanly, he might have been in a position to take full advantage of Hamilton and Rosberg's braking problems in the latter stages. 

Not only do Mercedes, a well-drilled (if increasingly complacent) outfit, have an advantage when it comes to the winning habit, the Silver Arrows' technical excellence should allow them—just as Rosberg did during the pit stop window in Monaco—to counteract any move made by Ferrari to eradicate what remains a sizable performance gap.

This was most evident in the Spanish Grand Prix, where, according to Sky Sports' Pete Gill, Ferrari effectively introduced a B-spec car, arriving with no fewer than "16 different new parts," from a revised floor to "shrink-wrapped sidepods," in an aggressive bid to reel in Mercedes.

Yet at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, which due to its layout provides a stringent test of a car's performance, Vettel, according to the official F1 website, qualified 0.8 seconds adrift of Rosberg's pole position time, crossing the finish line over 45 seconds behind the German and 28 seconds adrift of Hamilton, despite running ahead of the British driver for much of the race. 

It seems that whatever Ferrari do to try and close the gap to Mercedes, the German team has an answer, which perhaps explains why the Italian outfit have postponed their latest upgrade.

As reported by Sky Sports in April, Ferrari planned to introduce a major upgrade to their power unit in time for the next round in Canada—thought to be worth between 20 and 30 horsepower—in what would have been the team's one, last attack on Mercedes this season.

Yet Motorsport.com's Jonathan Noble has quoted team principal Maurizio Arrivabene as admitting that Ferrari will now refrain from using their remaining 10 engine tokens until later in the campaign, sacrificing short-term pain for long-term gain.

This approach could, indeed, prove to be a masterstroke if Vettel can remain in the thick of the title race until the end of the European season—perhaps allowing him to come good at a crucial stage of the year, when the German has traditionally produced his finest performances—but it is more likely an admission that Mercedes are tantalisingly out of reach in 2015. 

And by presenting a heavily developed engine in the latter stages of 2015, Ferrari could treat the final flyaway races as glorified test sessions prior to making further amendments in the off-season in preparation for a serious, firm championship assault in '16 and beyond.

Although that, in theory, would be the wisest approach, it is some comedown from the Malaysian Grand Prix just two months ago, when Vettel, in the immediate aftermath of his and the team's first win since 2013, told Sky Sports' James Galloway of his hopes of winning the world championship as soon as possible.

On that scorching Sepang afternoon, the possibilities were endless when Vettel's celebratory index finger finally recovered from its bout of impotence and the Prancing Horse had shaken off its limp.

The sky felt like the limit for the first team to beat Mercedes in a relatively straight fight and Arrivabene's pre-season target of two victories, as reported by BBC Sport's Andrew Benson, was the miscalculation of the century.

As every race has passed by, however, and Mercedes win grands prix they deserve to lose, it has looked like a realistic aim, with Ferrari too quick to be challenged by Williams and Red Bull Racing, but not yet strong nor shrewd enough to go head-to-head with the Silver Arrows on a weekly basis.

It is increasingly clear that 2015 is a season of stability for Ferrari and Vettel, who both came into the year with much to prove and their reputations on the line, and a third-place finish in the drivers' standings will represent a solid platform to bigger and better things in the coming seasons.

Follow @OllieHarden

The Monaco Grand Prix decided to mix things up on Sunday by replacing Grid Girls with Grid Boys.

Grid Girls have played a role in Formula One for over 40 years but have been labelled sexist by some. 

The organisers in Monaco seemed to invert the tradition for Sunday's race but one man who was not impressed with the change was Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel.

He said, as per Grandprix247: "What was that?! F--k, you get there and park behind George or Dave, what’s the point?"

Vettel finished second in the race behind Nico Rosberg. 

[Grandprix247]

At the Bahrain Grand Prix last month, Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen ended a 25-race streak without a podium finish.

Only one other time in his Formula One career had he gone even 17 races without finishing in the top three—and those were the first 17 races of his career, in 2001 with Sauber.

That streak ended at the first race of 2002, where the "Iceman" was a fighting third in his first race for McLaren, behind Michael Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya. And it was largely uphill from there: a world championship with Ferrari in 2007, a sabbatical and successful comeback with Lotus and 20 race victories.

But then he returned to Ferrari last season, struggled with the car and promptly turned in his worst-ever finish—12th in the drivers' standings. The unflappable Finn, it seemed, had been flapped.

This season promised more.

Raikkonen has a new team-mate, his friend Sebastian Vettel, and a new car that incoming Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene specifically asked his engineers to design around Raikkonen's strengths, per ESPN F1's Laurence Edmondson.

So far, though, Raikkonen hasn't really delivered on that promise. Yes, he was second in Bahrain, but Vettel has been on the podium in four of the five races this year and he won in Malaysia.

What is next for Raikkonen after another disappointing weekend in Spain, where he finished fifth and was unable to get past his countryman Valtteri Bottas, who recently denied rumours he is in line for Raikkonen's seat next year, per Autosport's Ian Parkes?

If he can get comfortable in the car, Raikkonen has the ability to regularly challenge Vettel and at least fight for the third step on the podium.

Against healthy Mercedes cars, it is hard to see him winning a race in 2015, although, as Vettel demonstrated in Malaysia, it is possible if the right circumstances come together.

Raikkonen is currently fourth in the drivers' championship, and anything less than that at the end of the season will be a big disappointment. He is already 28 points behind Vettel in third, however, so overtaking him will be a challenge.

The other question with Raikkonen is his motivation. Arrivabene is dangling a 2016 contract option as a carrot to urge the Finn to perform, according to journalist Adam Cooper, but how motivated can Raikkonen be knowing he isn't fighting for a win before the race even starts?

Raikkonen's many, many fans will not want to hear it, but it is also reasonable to expect that 2015 will be his last season in F1. He will be 36 years old by the end of the season and it is not beyond the realm of scientific possibility that his best days are behind him. There are few athletes (steroid-assisted baseball players notwithstanding) who get better as they approach the age of 40.

It would be a mistake for Raikkonen to hang on for too long. Michael Schumacher's comeback with Mercedes did not really detract from his overall legacy because he was so good earlier with Benetton and Ferrari. Raikkonen is a great talent, too, although not at Schumacher's level. A long decline would be more harmful to his legacy.

And even if Raikkonen does want to stay, Ferrari might not be interested. If they think Bottas is a future champion, they would be foolish not to sign him if he becomes available. Unless Raikkonen's form improves significantly, he might just find there is no room for him at Ferrari (or at any other team with a competitive car) next year.

The carefully PR-controlled world of modern F1 will sorely miss Raikkonen whenever he does leave. Indeed, that is one of the reasons for Raikkonen's immense popularity: He is one of the only drivers who regularly provides quotes that don't sound like they have been put through a heavy spin cycle.

Or maybe his exit won't come this year—maybe he will manage a surprise victory or two at some point and find a way to challenge Vettel, if not the Mercs. A rejuvenated Raikkonen would be great for the sport, which is twisting itself into knots trying to improve the show (the latest Strategy Group meeting has apparently agreed to more tinkering with the regulations, per the BBC's Andrew Benson). 

Either way, time is running out. Even the most popular and most talented athletes grow old and can no longer perform. Maybe Raikkonen has reached that stage already, or maybe he is still waiting to pull back the curtain on a surprise third act in his career.

For the sake of the sport and its fans, let's hope he has a bit of magic left in his tank.

Follow me on Twitter for updates when I publish new articles and for other (mostly) F1-related news and banter:

Follow @MatthewWalthert

Sebastian Vettel had that familiar glint in his eye after qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Seven days after finishing 0.9 seconds adrift of Lewis Hamilton's pole time on the Saturday of the Chinese GP, as per the official Formula One website, the German had managed to split the Mercedes cars, punting Nico Rosberg down to third.

Vettel had once again extracted the most out of Ferrari's F15-T and, perhaps for the first time since late-2013, was entering a race as the man to beat.

An abrasive track surface—Pirelli's race preview revealed the Bahrain International Circuit has "the highest degree of asphalt roughness seen all year"—and warm, if cooling, conditions were set to create a highly strategic race, the type of event that saw Ferrari record their first victory in almost two years in Malaysia.

Starting second on the grid, a position Hamilton utilised to snatch the lead at the first corner of the 2014 event, the odds were in very much in Vettel's favour.

It was, to all intents and purposes, his race to lose.

Lose it, however, he did. In truth, Vettel never appeared to be in contention for victory from the moment those five red lights beamed above the start line.

The very trait that allowed him to produce that superb qualifying lap 24 hours earlier, his high-input driving style, was what counted against Vettel in the race, according to Sky Sports' Mark Hughes. He was unable to conserve his tyres as effectively as team-mate Kimi Raikkonen.

Indeed, soon after Vettel's first error of the evening on Lap 8—running wide at Turn 1, which let Rosberg close up to and overtake his compatriot the following lap—Raikkonen radioed the team to explain how the German was already holding him up, as per the FIA television feed.

Further mistakes followed, the last of which required a trip to the pit lane for a new front wing, as Vettel continued to fade from the front.

This meant by the time both Hamilton and Rosberg suffered brake-by-wire failures within the last two laps, Vettel, rather than being in a position to capitalise on Mercedes' misfortune and claim his second victory of the season, was some 40 seconds behind, trying and failing to pass Williams' Valtteri Bottas for fourth place.

After an accomplished start to his first season as a Ferrari driver, recording three consecutive podium finishes and returning some pride to the Prancing Horse following its five-year impersonation of a bucking bronco, Vettel's performance in Bahrain was baffling.

Even in 2014, the most damaging campaign of the German's F1 career as he struggled to adjust to the demands of the V6 turbo regulations and failed to win a race, Vettel didn't make as many notable mistakes over the course of a single grand prix as he made at Sakhir last weekend.

Ferrari's technical director, James Allison, told Motorsport.com's Pablo Elizalde it simply "wasn't his best day in the office," adding it was "one of those things."

But Vettel himself offered a far more eloquent explanation, telling Sky Sports' Pete Gill how he "probably tried a bit too hard today," before elaborating to Autosport's Ben Anderson and Jonathan Noble, stating: "I was probably pushing very hard and did some mistakes. I think all in all, not a perfect race.

"Obviously, I did not get in to the rhythm and lost positions when it [was important] not to lose positions for the overall race."

For all the similarities between Malaysia and Bahrain, from the grinding asphalt to the tyre-limited pace, there was one key difference between the grands prix, which didn't become entirely apparent until after the chequered flag.

While Ferrari's long-overdue win at Sepang came as a surprise to everyone, including Mercedes—whose team principal, Toto Wolff, referred to the result as a "wake-up call," as per Sky Sports' James Galloway—Vettel was expected to mount a challenge at Sakhir, with Sky Sports' Mike Wise quoting Hamilton as naming the German as his "biggest rival" on the eve of the race.

That alone, in a season of limited opportunities given Mercedes' sustained pace advantage, generated its own pressures and required Vettel to drive on the edge at the increased risk of getting it wrong.

Whereas the win in Malaysia almost came naturally, Bahrain encouraged Vettel to actively pursue victory— easier said than done when a driver has been starved of the winning feeling, and the primal instincts it stimulates, for an extended period of time.

To watch Vettel in early 2015, in fact, is to be transported back to the days of 2009 and 2010, his first two years at Red Bull Racing, when winning was still a new, enchanting experience which carried so many possibilities.

In search of the first of his four world championships, Vettel would frequently alternate between the brilliant and the bad, dominating from pole one weekend and colliding with another car, a barrier, or incurring the wrath on the race stewards the next.

Those fluctuations in form no doubt played a crucial role in his development as a driver and were perhaps a factor behind his dominant spells in 2011 and '13 in particular. It is telling that since his move to Ferrari Vettel has behaved with the same raw enthusiasm and freedom of his early years.

After his humbling 2014 campaign—which if Christian Horner's comments to the Guardian's Paul Weaver are to be believed left the German contemplating his future in the sport—the back-to-basics approach has revived Vettel in his new environment this season.

Ferrari didn't reap the rewards of that in the Bahrain Grand Prix, but they will sooner than later.

Follow @OllieHarden