Briatore: Vettel too obsessed with winning races to focus on championship

Former F1 team principal Flavio Briatore has weighed in on Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari's title collapse and believes the German driver is 'too obsessed' with winning races to win the world championship.

Speaking to Nico Rosberg on the former Mercedes driver's podcast, Briatore explained that Vettel is far too focused on winning individual races, hurting his chances of winning a world championship by not seeing the bigger picture during races.

"Vettel is not winning the championship, he's winning races and it doesn't work like that," he explained.

"If you lose out in three or four opportunities like that, it's 25 points thrown away every time and it's becoming very difficult after that mentally.

"I believe the stress you have as a driver is enormous and if you're in the position to handle the stress and do the job and not go out (retire from races), you're winning. Because when you go out, it's the worst possible scenario – we know that."

Briatore pointed to the Italian Grand Prix as the prime example of what he meant. In a race in which Ferrari should have won comfortably, Vettel made yet another mistake in an attempt to win the race rather than play the long game in the championship battle with Lewis Hamilton.

"You need to explain to him that the race is 53 laps, and not one lap," he said. "I remember we had the same experience with Fernando.

"When you want to win the championship finishing third place is already bingo. It's important to stay on the track.

"His (Vettel's) accident in Monza made no sense, honestly. You know the car is better, you just brake and stay behind, finito. You have 50 more laps to recover it.

"If you go out, you have zero laps to recover. Sure, with the car he has he could finish fourth because the car is better than the rest of the competition. But when you want to win the championship you have to be a master at that and do well and finish second and third also.

"The target is to just get the points. You don't need to win every race to win the championship. It's not about the race wins, it's about the points.

"If you have a competitive car, you overtake somebody. If you are going to have an accident with the guy who has more points than you, the advantage goes to your competitor."