2015 title like ’winning the lottery’ - Arrivabene

Team boss Maurizio Arrivabene has played down Ferrari’s chances of winning the world championship.

After winning in Singapore amid Mercedes’ sudden slump, Sebastian Vettel declared that he would try to make the "impossible possible" by lifting a fourth drivers’ crown this season.

But then Mercedes returned to its usual top form at Suzuka, causing Arrivabene to equate Ferrari’s chances of beating Mercedes now with winning the lottery.

"If you win the lottery, you’re a millionaire," he said. "But you need to be very, very lucky — about as lucky as we would have to be."

The Italian, however, said that despite winning dominantly in Singapore, Ferrari was never under the illusion that it could keep going head-to-head with Mercedes.

"We always knew that the real comparison is not a track like Singapore, but a classic circuit like Silverstone.

"So what is important to me is that if you look at the gap between us and Mercedes in Britain and the gap in Japan, we have caught up. So I am proud of the work of our engineers," said Arrivabene.

He also warned that, like Japan, Sochi in two weeks could be another less-than-ideal circuit for the red car.