Is Sebastian Vettel Struggling For Confidence In His 2019 Car?

The thing about facts is that they can’t be disputed. They can’t be denied their own place under the sun, and cannot be subjected to any kind of tinkering around. And fact certainly is that by this time last year, Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel had already won 3 races, including the first two racing events at Australia and Bahrain.

And where does Sebastian Vettel stand right now? Where the Driver Standings matter, then Sebastian Vettel is currently third on the standings. He trails Mercedes drivers Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton, in that order. And that’s the only concern if you are the four-time world champion.

Sebastian Vettel is only 1 point ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, the Dutchman on 51 points vis-a-vis the German’s 52. Any time soon, we may see Vettel being usurped by a familiar on-track opponent.

The above told, a compilation of all the aforementioned realities point to Sebastian Vettel’s fragilities this season, made manifest by the fact that the experienced Ferrari driver, who is currently driving in his fifth season at the Scuderia hasn’t even occupied the second step of the podium.

Forget race wins, it appears that one of the most talented and successful of all drivers is somewhat struggling in his Ferrari SF-90. Is he not?

To that end, what doesn’t help Vettel’s cause one bit is that on the one hand where he’s fighting to live another day and stay relevant at a team for which he drove 5 wins in 2018, there’s the rise of his junior teammate, Charles Leclerc, on the other hand.

Despite the SF90 being no lame challenger for the 2019 championship, the car possessing sufficient race-pace to challenge the frontrunners, thanks to its impressive aerodynamic design and other facets that have been duly taken care of, for some reason, it appears that Vettel’s not been able to extract the most out of the car.

And what couldn’t be denied in lines of the above is that Vettel himself recently implied that he’s not the most confident behind the wheel of his current Ferrari challenger for the year. So what did the German driver have to say?

You need confidence in the car and I’m not yet there,” Vettel said before Barcelona.

“I can feel that I’m not driving at my best simply because the car does not respond in the way that I like.  Then it’s unnatural,” he explained.”