Lewis Hamilton took a major step to a fifth world championship on Sunday when the Brit won the Japanese Grand Prix to extend his lead at the top of the Drivers' Championship to a massive 67 points with four races remaining. 

It would seem unthinkable that Hamilton could let this lead slip now, especially with the out-of-form Vettel, who is his nearest title challenger, seemingly making mistakes most weekends on the track.

Yet again this weekend, a move by the German did not pay off.

Vettel's ill-timed move by trying to overtake Red Bull's Max Verstappen for third on lap eight sent the four-time world champion down the order, with his championship chances going down with him. 

Many fans of F1 have noticed some key differences between Hamilton and Vettel this season, and Canadian ex-world champion Jacques Villeneuve has given his insight into where it has all gone wrong for the German this year. 

Villeneuve, who was talking to Sky Italia after the race, said about Vettel's move: "He was too far behind when he overtook.

"Max couldn't just say 'Please go past me'. Vettel tried something and didn't play dirty, but it was too risky.

"He could write a book about his season called 'How to lose a world championship'.

"The key difference between him and Hamilton this year is that Lewis first thinks about the situation before making an aggressive attack."

Indeed it would seem that what we have found out this season is that Hamilton has been calm and cautious in his thinking before trying a bold move, whereas Vettel has seemed desperate at times, and largely making the wrong move at the wrong time - with the Japanese Grand Prix being a prime example last weekend. 

"Already at the last race we could see that he has accepted he cannot win. You can see that he is more relaxed already," Villeneuve said about Vettel. 

As for Hamilton, the champion in waiting will secure the title at the US Grand Prix in Austin, Texas, in two weeks' time if he wins the race and Vettel is lower than second, or if Hamilton scores eight more points than him.

The Canadian finished by saying: "It's not easy to understand Ferrari, and not just because they lost some races.

"After some mistakes they never returned to the right path and that's impossible to understand from the outside."

It would seem likely that Ferrari will want to go into these last four races hoping for no more drama and for Vettel to gain some confidence back before going away and assessing their campaign, trying to figure out where it all went wrong before returning for another go at it next season.