The fact is that the next four races are in Singapore, South Korea, Japan and India, and Sebastian Vettel won the lot last year. Red Bull tend to finish strongly and Vettel, who is 53 points ahead of his nearest challenger, Fernando Alonso, merely has to keep picking up points to nail his fourth straight title. Having won half the 12 races so far he does not need to win again.

Lewis Hamilton sees no end soon to Red Bull’s dominance of F1 | theguardian.com.

For regular F1A&G readers, you should know I believe technical dominance is an integral part of Formula One motor racing. The difference now is that with constantly changing technical regulations, limits on permissible innovation and cost-cutting measures that have all but eliminated testing and require components to be engineered to last for at least several races, the margins for technological dominance are far narrower than previously in F1. Red Bull’s Adrian Newey is brilliant, but his designs still are not comparable to those in which Michael Schumacher won consistently for Ferrari in the early 2000s or Jim Clark for Lotus in the 1960s.

In 2009, 2010 and 2012, the championship battle lasted until the last race of the season. That’s monumentally exciting, even if one driver has emerged head-and-shoulders above the rest.