After four years of domination, Sebastian Vettel has been forced to play a support role, not only to the all-conquering Mercedes duo, but to his own teammate. Red Bull's motorsport consultant Helmut Marko fully sympathises with the German but is confident that there are further good times ahead.

Compared to previous seasons the world champion has appeared to suffer an inordinate amount of bad luck.

"We try to optimise all controls to eliminate these issues," the Austrian told the official F1 website. "But if you think of his engine failure on Friday in Singapore: something like this has not happened before - and it always happens to Seb! Lotus has problems - as do Caterham and Toro Rosso - but there it happens to both drivers. In our case it is always Seb!

Asked what he can promise Vettel for 2015, he replies: "That we will have a better test season and that we will have more power. There was a technical meeting where technical upgrades to the power unit were discussed and should be completely implemented by July 2015. So by the start of the European rounds we should have a really competitive power unit."

Which suggests that the Austrian team has already written-off the opening, fly-away, races of next season.

"We have proven this season that even with a striking power deficit we can compete successfully," he replies, "and it shouldn't be all that bad next year, also not at the first flyaway races."

When it is suggested that without Daniel Ricciardo's results the season would have been a write-off for the Austrian outfit, Marko says: "I would slightly disagree with that. Think of Canada: both had the chance to win. Budapest was in the same mould: the safety car played against Seb. (These were) both races where the two had the same speed, but due to matters outside of our control both races ended to Seb's disadvantage."

Asked what is still possible this season, Marko replies: "We had a good race in Singapore. Of course, on tracks with lots of straights the Mercedes are still much faster, but when there are lots of corners - on tracks where the chassis matters more - we are again in the picture.

"We want to defend our P2 in the constructors' championship and of course Williams and Ferrari are catching up. Williams are clearly the more dangerous. And believe it or not we haven't given up on the drivers' championship yet. With the double points in Abu Dhabi anything is still possible!"

Does this mean that he now welcomes the idea of double points for the season finale?

"Yes, right now we do appreciate it very much! Though should we get ‘exiled' from P2 in the constructors' championship then we will curse it!"