Sebastian Vettel feels Ferrari was “still too far away” from Mercedes through the 2018 Formula ൩1 season, citing a “significant drop in performance” as proving costly in the clo꧅sing stages of the season.

Vettel led the drivers’ championship at the halfway point in the se🎀ason ahead of Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, only to suffer a downturn in form through the second half of the season after a number of costly errors.

V🎀ettel’s title bid was also hurt by Ferrari’s pursuit of a number 𝐆of car updates that failed to work, meaning he won just one race in the second half of the season.

Looking at the season as a whole, Vettel said Ferrari needed to ensure it drew closer to Mercedes in terms of performance, having experienc𓃲ed a big swing in fortunes towards the end of the year. 

“I think if you look atཧ the whole championship, we🍃 were still too far away,” Vettel said.

“It was looking quite good and close up until halfway through, maybe including the races at Spa and Monza. Buওt after that, I think we had quite a significant drop in performance which made it quite difficult ♏for us.

“Equally Lewis, together with Mercedes, had a very strong sequence of races, scoring a lot of points, a lot of wins. Then the gap opened up quite quicꦐkly.”

Vettel said he did not pay close attention to the growing points gap to Hamilton, only feeling his title hopes were over with three races to go in Mex𝓀ico, where the championship was settled.

“You always tend to believe and fight until the end, so it was really Mexico when I realised it would be difficult, and then impossible once we crossed the line,” Vཧettel said.

“Until t𝓰hen, I didn’t really follow the points that closely. I knew it wasn’t going in my favour, but how many champi🐭onships I think is anyway a sort of luxury to be able to choose from.

“I think the motivation is obviously to win, and the motivation is obviously to win with Ferrari. That’s my target💟, obviously not there yet, not quite, so we’ll try again."