Horner: Vettel’s 2012 title shows this isn’t over

Red Bull boss Christian Horner believes Sebastian Vettel’s 2012 title win shows that it would be wrong to rule him out of this year’s World Championship battle.

Vettel was 42 points behind Fernando Alonso in the mid-summer break of the 2012 campaign with nine races left to complete. 2018 sees the four-time World Champion 40 points behind Lewis Hamilton with six races to overturn the deficit.

And Horner thinks Vettel has the right mentality to produce another epic comeback.

“Usually he’s very good under pressure,” said Horner. “He certainly won’t give up, he was 40-odd points before down I think in 2012.

“But obviously it will be disappointing for him to have lost out to Lewis at this race.

“The Ferrari’s a very quick car. There’s still six races to go, 150 points available.

“Anything can still happen but Lewis is over a weekend and third place ahead.”

Horner conceded, though, that the task in store for Vettel and Ferrari is going to be a very difficult one to achieve.

He added: “Obviously it looks like Lewis is in the driving seat now.

“He’s just got to be consistent to year-end. It’s going to be an uphill battle [for Ferrari] to get themselves back into it.”

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