It's been the story of the entire year. As late as July's Hungarian Grand Prix, the last time somebody other than Vettel won a race, the majority of pundits (including myself) were still predicting a close title battle. But, just as the rain failed to fall on Sunday, at the right time at least, Red Bull's rivals have failed to make a contest of the latter half of the year and thus have left the way clear for Vettel to equal the historic achievements of Michael Schumacher and Alberto Ascari.
At least the first few laps of the grand finale were entertaining as Nico Rosberg, who shared the front row with pole-sitter Vettel, managed to vault into the lead at the first corner. Meanwhile, the second Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton managed to move up into third place ahead of a fast-starting Fernando Alonso, who found his path blocked by an uncharacteristically tardy Vettel.
Rosberg's reign at the front of the field was to be short-lived, however, as Vettel managed to get a far better exit from the final corner on the first lap and had already edged ahead of his compatriot by the time the pair had crossed the start/finish line. Rosberg was forced to concede the position as they headed into the Senna 'S', and, by the time Vettel completed the second lap, he was already 1.4 seconds clear.
After another lap, Rosberg had dropped a further 1.2 seconds to Vettel and now had Alonso, who dispatched Hamilton at the same point at which Vettel grabbed the lead, looming large in his mirrors. By this stage, Mark Webber had already relieved Hamilton of fourth place with a bold manoeuvre around the outside of the Ferradura corner.
Rosberg, whose car was ostensibly set up for the wet of qualifying rather than the dry conditions prevailing on Sunday, then began to quickly fall backwards - Alonso charged past the ailing Mercedes driver into second place at the Descida do Lago corner on lap four, followed by Webber at the start of lap seven, Hamilton on lap 11 and Felipe Massa on lap 15.
Once clear of Rosberg, Webber wasted no time whatsoever cruising towards Alonso, who had no answer to the pace of the Australian and found himself demoted to third place at the start of lap 13. At the first round of pit-stops, however, Alonso managed to get second place back, forcing the Red Bull driver to repeat his earlier pass on lap 26 before pulling away and securing another Red Bull one-two.
By this stage, Vettel had already made his first stop and was a little over 10 seconds clear of his teammate. With no rain forthcoming, that was essentially it as far as the battle for the lead was concerned, although a slow second stop for Vettel, caused by the Red Bull mechanics not having his tyres ready when he arrived at his pit box, did erode his advantage to a degree.
Team principal Christian Horner later explained that the mix-up was due to Vettel stopping earlier than planned to cover himself in the event of an appearance by the Safety Car. This was a genuine concern after a rather strange collision between Lewis Hamilton and a lapped Valtteri Bottas on lap 47 at the Descida do Lago corner, the pair clashing under braking as the latter tried to un-lap himself.
The net result was instant retirement for Bottas and a puncture for Hamilton, who had been running comfortably in fourth place. The Briton managed to return to the pits with relatively little damage, but was later handed a drive-through penalty for being deemed to have caused the incident, costing him even more time and dropping him outside of the points.
Another man to experience the wrath of the stewards was Felipe Massa, who had been battling Hamilton hard for fourth during the second stint prior to serving a drive-through penalty on lap 34. The Brazilian had repeatedly crossed a white line at the final, flat-out corner marking the pit-lane entry, something which the drivers had reportedly been warned against doing prior to the race.
Without the penalty, Massa would have stood on the podium at his home Grand Prix as Alonso admitted after the race that he would have pulled over to let his teammate taste the champagne for the final time as a Ferrari driver had he been in a position to do so. What's more, Ferrari would have snatched the runner-up spot in the constructors' standings, but in the event Mercedes hung on by six points.
These mishaps allowed Jenson Button to come through and take an unlikely fourth place, a superb effort from an unpromising grid slot of 14th. The McLaren driver had already climbed up to seventh by the time of his first pit-stop, at which stage he was able to leapfrog a struggling Rosberg before capitalising on the misfortunes of Hamilton and Massa to secure McLaren's best finishing position of what has proven to be an embarrassingly poor season for the Woking-based team.
Rosberg wasn't far behind the Brit at the finish in fifth place, ahead of Sergio Perez, who came home an excellent sixth place in his last outing for McLaren. The Mexican had started all the way down in 19th after a shunt in qualifying, but made up no fewer than 13 positions during the race in another drive that leads one to question whether McLaren were right to drop him for next year.
An irate Massa was next up in seventh place after his penalty, ahead of Sauber's Nico Hulkenberg, who had a fairly uneventful run to eighth place, and a recovering Hamilton. Daniel Ricciardo took the final point of the season in his final race with Toro Rosso before stepping up to join Vettel at Red Bull, staving off a marauding pack consisting of Paul Di Resta, in what may be his last F1 race, Esteban Gutierrez and Adrian Sutil.
In a decidedly sub-par showing, Heikki Kovalainen finished only 14th in his second appearance for Lotus as a stand-in for the absent Kimi Raikkonen. The fact Kovalainen failed to make any contribution whatsoever to the Enstone-based team's points tally must be a bitter pill to swallow for Lotus reserve Davide Valsecchi, who was spurned precisely because the team wanted an experienced hand to help them in the crucial battle for constructors' points.
Ultimately, any hopes of Lotus overhauling Ferrari or even Mercedes in the constructors' standings went up in smoke along with Romain Grosjean's engine at the end of the third lap, a disappointing end to what has been an extraordinary season for the Frenchman.
Further back, Pastor Maldonado spun after making contact with Jean-Eric Vergne in the closing stages, the Frenchman taking 15th place ahead of the Venezuelan in his final outing for Williams before a widely anticipated move to Lotus. Rounding off the finishers were Jules Bianchi, Giedo van der Garde and Max Chilton, who holds the distinction of being the only driver to finish every single race this year, whilst Charles Pic, who suffered a late suspension failure, was the only other retirement of the race.
Without the assistance of the weather, neither Pic nor van der Garde had any realistic hope of taking the pivotal 13th place that would have seen Caterham surpass rivals Marussia, who are set to receive a welcome cash bonus for finishing in the top 10 constructors' standings for the first time in their history thanks to Bianchi's 13th place finish all the way back in Malaysia.
Sunday's race was undoubtedly a race of 'lasts': it was the last race for Webber as an F1 driver before he moves on to Porsche's endurance racing programme; for Massa as a Ferrari driver before he joins Williams; for Vodafone as a major sponsor, for Cosworth as an engine supplier (again), and, of course, for the current breed of 2.4 litre normally aspirated V8 engines.
The end of the V8 era that commenced back in 2006 also marks the close of an era where aerodynamic efficiency has been the main determinant of a team's competitiveness. Next year, engine performance, much as it was during the V10 era, will be a far more significant differentiating factor - not even Adrian Newey's design genius will rescue Red Bull if Renault's power-train isn't up to scratch.
Unreliability, which has played very little part in F1 in recent years, could influence proceedings far more often next year, too, whilst the fact next year's cars are said to be tougher to drive could also help to shake things up. In short, 2014 is very much a step into the unknown, and a shuffling of the competitive order would come as a huge breath of fresh air to the many fans who have grown weary of Vettel re-writing the record books this year.
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