While Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne has said there will be no scapegoats following the F1 team's recent run of poor form, most of it self-inflicted, long term - even short term - followers of the sport will know that such claims are standard practice.

Once the season ends, and attention shifts elsewhere, that's when the changes are made, old faces despatched with barely a mention and new faces welcomed with open arms.

Indeed, Maurizio Arrivabene, a former Marlboro man - though not in the cowboy sense - was Ferrari's third team boss in a period of less than eight months, replacing the - never to be heard of again Marco Mattiacci, who had in turn replaced Stefano Domenicali.

Despite Marchionne's denials, the rumours persist, and speaking at today's FIA press conference Sebastian Vettel leapt to his defence.

Asked if he is keen to say the Italian kept on board, Vettel was in no doubt: "Absolutely," he replied.

"What is his strength?" he continued. "Look at the results, look at where Ferrari was after 2014, how competitive Ferrari was in 2014 and how in unreasonable shape it was.

"The spirit was down," he admitted. "He is the key person responsible for bringing that back, to open things up and change things that were done for 20 years before that. He has an innovative and creative way of thinking, he is the right man, he is a good leader, he is well respected by all the people, no matter what level of the company. Absolutely I am a fan."

"If you look at the results, they are coming," he added. "This year we would have liked it to be a bit different, but these things happen, we're still growing the team, growing the culture, we are still on that journey. The expectation is always high. We have made massive steps in the last three years and we have to continue to make those steps. Where we have gone, 2015, through '16, and '17, things are heading in the right way, and he is a key person for that."

Still refusing to give up on the title, though increasingly sounding like the Black Knight from Monty Python's Holy Grail, the German - a keen fan of Python - said: "The pity was there were a couple of races where we were just not there to fight. I would have loved to even be on three wheels in those races, but they obviously got away from us and we were just sitting on the sidelines.

"In the end it made a big difference, but we are now where we are, we still have a chance, we want to win the last three races and I think we can.

"We have proven probably everybody wrong," he insisted, "there was a lot of talk in the winter about Mercedes, who were favourites, a lot of talk about Red Bull, but not so much about Ferrari. Overall the team has been incredible to be where we are now. No one expected us to be that strong, so there are a lot of positives."

Check out our Thursday gallery from Mexico, here.