Miserable British Grand Prix bookends Sebastian Vettel's worst 12 months in F1

Sebastian Vettel was celebrating at the top of the Silverstone podium, beaming after his fourth win of the season. He had extended his championship lead to eight points.

His demeanour was in incredible contrast to Lewis Hamilton, who stood deflated after having to fight his way back through the field to second. Vettel and Ferrari had denied him a fifth consecutive home victory. That was 12 months ago.

Then Vettel was perhaps just about a marginal favourite to beat Hamilton a fifth world title. Certainly it looked like it would go to the wire. Now, with a record sixth British GP win, Hamilton is marching steadily and certainly to a sixth world title, winning 15 of the last 21 grands prix. Michael Schumacher's records for wins and titles is almost within reach.

Vettel in that time has won just once: the Belgian Grand Prix in August 2018.  He now has no realistic chance of the title this year – although that is not all entirely his fault – and now his biggest struggle is to keep his place as Ferrari’s top driver as his form and judgement appear to be failing him.

Errors have been many and varied. They would not just fill a catalogue but perhaps even a library. Another on Sunday bookends the German's worst 12 months in Formula One, where he has gone from contender to become a shadow of a great champion. It is difficult for him to hide from the hard questions about his driving and his future, both at Ferrari and in motor racing.

In many ways it is hard to watch Vettel these days and difficult to see how greatly his star has faded. When he won his four consecutive world titles with Red Bull from 2010-2013 he was imperious. A master over one lap in qualifying, he would often run and hide unchallenged on Sunday.

Back then he was a breath of fresh air. Far from his super serious and taciturn compatriot Michael Schumacher, Vettel was open, friendly and jovial with a cheeky smile and a love of British humour. Compare that to now. It would be a stretch to describe him as broken but it's difficult to say that F1 is currently giving him any reasons to be cheerful.

The avoidable collision with Max Verstappen in the British Grand Prix on Sunday is not even his worst or costliest error. But it was entirely his fault. Up to that point he had driven a decent race. Verstappen pulled off a clean move around the outside of the Stowe, the quick right-hander. Vettel kept closely behind going into the Vale chicane, mere feet from the Red Bull's rear wing. He looked to the inside briefly but the Red Bull was there. Then he appeared to misjudge his braking, punting Verstappen into the gravel and damaging his own front wing.

He received a ten-second penalty for the incident, had to change his front wing and finished a lowly 16th.  The amount of misjudgments and mistakes Vettel has made in the heat of battle would be worrying for a rookie. But for a four-time champion, Ferrari's number one driver and someone, ostensibly, in the fight for a world title they are unforgivable and worrying.

To Vettel's credit, he apologised straight after the race, before the Dutchman was even out of his cockpit. Contrast this to his meltdown after the Canadian Grand Prix or numerous other instances of ill-temper in or out of the car. Both magnanimity and petulance are part of Vettel as a competitor.

The German Grand Prix comes next, the scene of Vettel's most costly (and painful) error in the last year, a moment that swung the title firmly in Hamilton's direction and defined the season. That was a small mistake with big consequences. There have been plenty more since: in Italy he collided with Hamilton and spun; in Japan and the USA he did similar with Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo respectively. Then in Bahrain this season he spun under pressure from an overtaking Hamilton and put it on the grass under similar circumstances in Canada.

All of this underline how far he has fallen. He cannot seem to have a run of races without moments like these. Charles Leclerc, despite Ferrari's best efforts to favour Vettel earlier in the season, is now just three points behind in the championship and has outclassed the German in the last two rounds.  In Canada, Vettel was back to his best before the error, but any revival seems to have been the exception rather than the norm.

Since then he has been off the pace, qualifying an enormous eight-tenths of a second away from Leclerc in France and Great Britain. In the last three rounds Leclerc has finished third, second and third. Vettel has finished fifth, fourth and now 16th.

He has always been a scholar of F1, with a great knowledge of its history and traditions and someone who is very proud to be a part of that. Anyone with four world titles and 50-odd race victories deserves that place. But he has never seemed like someone who depends on F1, or who sees himself as defined by it.  In an interview with the BBC he said he cared what people thought about his status in the sport but that it wasn't everything.

"The question is how much? And compared to maybe other people, very little. In the end, we all care what people think about us," he said. "You don't want to have anybody telling you you look horrible, or what's this, or what have you done there. Of course you would rather hear nice things. But how much do you actually depend on it? That's the point."

It is wrong to discredit Vettel's four championships. He won them fairly and through beating tough competitors like Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button, Mark Webber and Hamilton. The Red Bull was the class of the field but that's F1; the best driver often gets into the best team. And he won them with cars that were not as dominant as Hamilton's has been in his four titles with Mercedes. There is time to turn this around but as the races go on and the mistakes pile up it is hard not to argue that his reputation is now severely dented.

Do Ferrari now have to seriously think about the status of their two drivers? Leclerc, too, has made errors yet has only been with the team for 10 races and is, at the moment, looking more like the lead driver. With neither man really in the title fight and Red Bull 50-odd points behind them the decision of who to prioritise this season is not going to make a huge difference to where they place. Favouring Leclerc - after all that has been said this year, and given his relatively junior status in the sport and Vettel's place as a four-time champion - would put them all in a very sticky spot. Might Vettel even quit altogether?

2020 is different, though. And beyond that is another thing altogether. Ferrari have to think about their future and winning a first drivers' or constructors' title for over a decade. Leclerc's brilliant tussle with Verstappen carried over from Austria to Silverstone. It was enthralling, both young drivers on the edge and giving barely an inch.

This time it was the Monegasque who emerged on top with hard, fair and largely clean racing. Leclerc is Ferrari's future. Vettel has had many great moments in red overalls but he may soon come to represent the Scuderia's unfulfilled past.