Can Verstappen emulate Vettel's greatest F1 season?

F1

Max Verstappen and Red Bull are currently in imperious form – similar to Sebastian Vettel's greatest year in F1, writes Damien Smith

2011 Brazilian GP Sebastian Vettel Red Bull

Vettel had unprecedented success with Red Bull between 2009 and 2013

Red Bull

Is Sebastian Vettel regretting his decision to retire from Formula 1 in the wake of Fernando Alonso’s spirited performance for Aston Martin in Bahrain? He’s bound to have the odd pang about what he appears to have given up, in the shape of the potent AMR23.

But if there is a ripple of regret, let’s hope it just washes over him and disperses. Vettel made his decision to stop for good reason: he knew it was time. Once you know you’re done, take a leaf from Jackie Stewart: no looking back, no regrets – and stay retired. It’s usually for the best, which is why it was faintly alarming when rumour briefly swirled that Vettel was ready to offer his services had Lance Stroll not been passed fit to race in the season opener because of his cycling injuries. Taking on a still fully committed Alonso probably wouldn’t have ended too well for a man who knows what it is to graze the heavens.

It’s 10 years since Vettel was hitting his peaks, on his way to the last of his four consecutive world titles. Back in 2013, the German won a then record-equalling 13 races and set a new benchmark for points scored in a season, his total of 397 exceeding the entire tally of Mercedes-AMG duo Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. Such domination.

2 2011 Brazilian GP Sebastian Vettel Red Bull

Brazil 2013 marked the end of a dominant Vettel/Red Bull era

Red Bull

It’s not that long ago in the grand scheme of things, but in a way feels like a lifetime when you consider how far Vettel dropped thereafter. He and Red Bull scored an astonishing 38 race victories together from the first in China in 2009 to the last at Interlagos four years later. Having understood what it meant to soar so high, it must have been a strain to find himself back among the mortals. In that context, it’s a wonder he raced on for as long as he did.

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Max Verstappen is living at comparable peaks now as he surpasses some (but not all) of the records Vettel set more than a decade ago. It’s a little glass-half-empty to make rash judgements after just one race, but how Red Bull and Verstappen performed in Sakhir triggered flashbacks to Vettel’s greatest days, and I can’t help but wonder how closely history might be about to repeat. The parallels cannot be identical, because nothing ever is. But perhaps there might be echoes. F1 as a whole will hope they don’t grow too loud. Those pre-season wishes of a potential three-way fight between Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes already appear to be in ashes. Let’s see what Jeddah brings this Sunday.

Rather than 2013, it’s Vettel’s second championship in 2011 that first springs to mind when I think of his personal peak of F1 domination, because that was the year when he fully tapped into the potential for sporting immortality. Compared to Verstappen’s record breaking 14 wins in a season last term, Seb ‘only’ won 11 times in 2011, but that was from 19 races – for which he started from pole position a remarkable 15 times. The combination of Adrian Newey’s RB7 and its exhaust-blown diffuser was completely in tune with Vettel’s preference for a planted rear end. That, combined with the ushering in of Pirelli as Formula 1’s new spec tyre supplier, allowed Vettel to jump way ahead of his opposition. The year before, a strong finish and the rub of the baize had allowed him to take a points lead only when it counted the most – at the very end, to become champion for the first time. In 2011 no one, including his put-upon team-mate Mark Webber and certainly not the man who has just replaced him at Aston Martin, could see which way he went.

Vettel and Red Bull weren’t flawless back then – thankfully. A broken radio antennae at the third race of the season in China led to a communication mix-up and a suboptimal two-stop strategy when Hamilton’s three for McLaren prevailed. But it was the only one of the first six races he lost – and he still finished second ahead of a fast-gaining, three-stopping Webber.

2011 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull

Vettel in Red Bull-mode had a laser-like killer instinct, not dissimilar to Verstappen today

Red Bull

In Canada he fumbled the last lap in an infamous race that officially lasted for more than four hours because of a suspension that lasted for more than two, as Jenson Button claimed probably his greatest victory. There were errors at the Nürburgring too, as Hamilton took the limelight on Vettel’s home soil. Between them, the McLaren pair still managed six wins, Alonso won for Ferrari at Silverstone – and Webber picked up a consolation in the Brazilian finale when Vettel was delayed by a gearbox oil leak.

But the natural order was the common yarn: Vettel would secure pole, scamper away at the start to break the DRS effect – the rear-wing overtaking device having just been introduced – then nurse the intentionally fragile Pirellis, as F1 perversely steered towards artifice by embracing tyres actually designed to lose performance. All in the name of entertainment, you understand. Vettel and Red Bull appeared to ignore the memo on most weekends.

Even amid the supposedly ‘easy’ wins there were gems – which is what we might have to search for if Verstappen gets on a run this time. Spa was emotional for Newey when heavy tyre camber induced blisters in qualifying that potentially created a safety risk for his drivers at the start. Vettel accepted the challenge anyway and avoided a pitlane start on rubber he hadn’t qualified on to take up his pole position, then won anyway courtesy of an early stop and a well-timed safety car. There was little to stop him back then.

He secured his second consecutive title, at the age of just 24, with a third at Suzuka. There were tears and much pointing of those famous index fingers – and still four races to run. Those included the first of the short-lived Indian grands prix run at the Buddh circuit. There, amid the smog, Seb landed his first grand slam, leading every lap from pole and setting the race’s fastest lap on his last. This was annihilation.

“I have known F1 for a long time, and the big names and the history mean a lot to me,” he reflected at season’s end. “The fact that we are, in some ways, now a part of that is a special feeling and it’s something that no one can take from us.”

The truth in those words, especially the last bit, became amplified in the passing of years and in the wake of Vettel’s decline. We could never have imagined such a fall back then. If Verstappen and Red Bull are to embark on a year that echoes to the achievements of 2011, Vettel’s example will remind them that none of it can ever be taken for granted.

5 2011 Indian GP Sebastian Vettel Red Bull

Vettel seemed acutely aware of the fragility of success

Getty images

Two years later, after the eighth of his astonishing nine-race winning streak in Austin – and immediately before the hybrid era brought down the curtain on his greatest chapter – Vettel famously told his team on the radio: “We have to remember these days. There’s no guarantee they will be forever.” That he got to experience them at all should be satisfaction enough, as a thousand racing drivers would tell you.

It’s Verstappen’s time now. Where (and when) will it end?

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