F1 2019 | Nico Rosberg’s brutal sledge for Sebastian Vettel after year long win drought

Life as a Formula One driver can be difficult, as Ferrari star Sebastian Vettel’s Belgian Grand Prix predicament has shown.

No hugs for Sebastian.

Oh how fickle the F1 can be.

Ferrari’s four-time champion Sebastian Vettel was seen as the big hope to challenge Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton for the Drivers Championship at the beginning of the year but the Belgian Grand Prix may just have shown a changing of the guard.

The 32-year-old won his titles at Red Bull before switching to Ferrari in 2015.

While he hasn’t risen to the same success for the prancing horse, Vettel was clearly the top dog at Ferrari.

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The team even moved on 2007 World Champion Kimi Raikkonen to bring up 21-year-old Charles Leclerc from Sauber.

Now 13 races in, it appears there has been a seismic shift in the team.

Vettel is still fourth in the Drivers Championship but Leclerc is just 12 points behind his much more experienced teammate and has claimed Ferrari’s first win of the season in Belgium.

What a difference a year makes for Vettel.

Leclerc has overshadowed Vettel throughout the season with his duel against Red Bull’s Max Verstappen a sign of things to come with the future champions offering a mouth-watering view of the next decade of racing.

The true shift in power came at the weekend when Vettel was ordered to let Leclerc pass.

It’s shown the massive change after Ferrari ordered Leclerc to let Vettel pass at the Chinese Grand Prix.

But 2016 World Champion Nico Rosberg said it was a big turning point in the relationship with Vettel looking like Michael Schumacher’s former teammate Rubens Barrichello as Leclerc tore past to claim his maiden victory.

“Poor Vettel, Vettel was like a Barrichello in that race,” Rosberg said.

“Just waving past your teammate and helping him out. Amazing, for a four-time world champion, impressive. Let’s see how that plays out for Vettel, but he won’t be very happy with that, that’s for sure.

“Vettel is just struggling with that car at the moment, especially with the rear end, because it’s very very nervous and needs the confidence from the rear end and he’s just not getting it from the car.”

Vettel has now gone more than a year since winning a race with his last win coming in Belgium in 2018.

Is Leclerc’s now the number one car?

Team principle Mattia Binotto said Leclerc would have overtaken Vettel anyway, which is why the team orders were required.

“There were not many choices today,” Binotto said. “We had to anticipate Seb’s call and Seb’s pit to protect him from the Mercedes. Otherwise Hamilton would have stopped, they were ready for it and would have overcut.

“Second, because staying out longer put Charles in a better position with tyres. Seb was certainly faster at that stage and (Leclerc) would have overtook him at some stage simply because of the different strategy.

“We thought we are losing time, (it) would have been the best for the team and for Charles in that occasion.”

The move did appear to fly in the face of decisions earlier in the season but Binotto explained away the decision to give Leclerc the advantage.

“At the start of the season, when we at least tried, it was not always very well accepted from the outside,” said Binotto. “But since the very start of the season we always said that the first priority is the teams and the team points.

“Race by race we normally discuss with the drivers what may be the situation. It’s something that we discussed at least with both of them in the morning.

“No doubt that after a few races things become more straightforward even when discussing with drivers and drivers somehow understanding it. It’s never an easy call, I have to say, because drivers are in the car to drive as fast as they can and to do as much as they can for themselves.”

Vettel stated his Belgian race, because of issues in the corners and discomfort in the car, was “about the team”.

Leclerc’s first F1 win was emotional after the death of F2 driver Anthoine Hubert.

It was an emotional win for Leclerc.

After crossing the line, Leclerc said over team radio: “This one is for Anthoine — feels good, but difficult to enjoy on a weekend like this.”

Asked about his comments, Leclerc said he had lost a friend.

“We have grown up together and my first ever race I did when I was seven with Anthoine,” he said. “So it is such a shame what happened yesterday. I can’t enjoy it fully, my first victory, but it is a memory that will live with me forever.”