The highs and lows of Sebastian Vettel

The Formula 1 paddock will be greatly the poorer for the loss of Sebastian Vettel when he calls time on an extraordinary grand prix career at the end of the season. You kind of feared it might happen, but hoped it wouldn’t ever.

When a youthful-looking Vettel made his debut at Indianapolis in 2007, substituting for Robert Kubica at BMW after the Pole’s huge shunt at the previous race in Canada, you knew you were watching an emerging talent. But not a four-time world champion just six seasons down the road!

Vettel’s BMW links came through dominating a Formula BMW championship as a teenager with 18 wins from 20 starts but, in F1 terms, there was no room at the inn. The team’s F1 line-up was German Nick Heidfeld, a champion in Formula 3000 – the equivalent series to the current F2 – and Kubica, so Vettel was given a testing role.

Before Kubica’s career-destroying rallying accident in 2011, he was far from any old F1 driver. Just about anyone would have suffered in comparison. Robert was the toughest yardstick Vettel could have been measured against in his testing role. Those were the days when manufacturer F1 outfits had dedicated test crews that were as big as their race teams.

In fact, only recently, current Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack, who was then chief engineer at the BMW-Sauber squad and re-united with Vettel this year, told F1’s Beyond The Grid podcast that Kubica “was the best I’ve ever seen.”

Vettel had also been part of the Red Bull junior programme. After his promising performance in the US, where he qualified seventh and claimed the last point with eighth in the race, he was given a Toro Rosso seat for the remainder of the year in place of American, Scott Speed.

The timing was good. Although BMW and Kubica were challenging for the championship halfway through 2008, it was to Krack’s dismay and disappointment that rather than develop the car that took pole and won in Canada in ’08, they elected to concentrate on the ’09 car, with significant regulation changes ahead. By the end of the following year, Munich was out of F1.

Vettel though, was flying. Of his 53 grand prix victories – putting him third in the all-time list behind only Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher, and two up on that other four-time champion, Alain Prost – you can make a case for his first, at Monza in 2008 with the Ferrari-engined Toro Rosso, being the very best. It was certainly the most shocking.

Qualifying was held in the rain and Vettel took a stunning pole. Nobody thought that he could possibly convert it into the first ever victory by a Red Bull-backed car, but that is precisely what happened.

Toro Rosso’s technical director that day was ex-Ferrari/McLaren man Giorgio Ascanelli, who had worked with Ayrton Senna. Ascanelli, who had been around the block and was not a man prone to hyperbole, reckoned it was a drive of which Ayrton himself would have been proud.

The Red Bull senior team had yet to win a race at that point – Vettel would claim that honour too – and with David Coulthard hanging up his helmet at the end of that ’08 season, Sebastian was the natural choice to replace him alongside Mark Webber.

In Hungary last weekend, team principal Christian Horner recalled the early days of working with Vettel. “The thing that stood out about Seb was that from the very beginning you could see that he was a very focused young man and his work ethic was totally Germanic. He worked late but he also had a great sense of humour. He fitted so well into a British team and embraced the culture immediately.

“He endeared himself across all areas of the business, whether it was turning up with chocolates for secretaries or learning the lingo in the garage. His command of cockney slang became quite legendary. His ability to just relate to people and get the best out of them was great. And he was formidable in the cars that we produced in that period of time.”

“His command of cockney slang became quite legendary”

A man who came to know all about that was Webber, himself yet to win a GP at the beginning of ’09. Over the winter, Mark badly broke a leg when a bicycle he was riding in his own Tasmanian Challenge charity event was hit by a car just as he was about to get his hands on a new-rules Adrian Newey machine with which to go head-to-head with Vettel.

It could have torpedoed the career of a lesser man and it is to Webber’s great credit that he rose to the challenge, taking his first win at the Nürburgring in ’09 and being a big enough thorn in Vettel’s side for the rivalry to become spiky, in 2010 particularly.

It says much about both men that they were able to co-exist in that Red Bull environment for five years. The reason is that while both are hugely competitive individuals, they are both fundamentally decent fellows. While Webber often felt that Red Bull was “Seb’s team” – the “not bad for a No2 driver” Silverstone win and the Malaysia ‘Multi 21’ incidents spring immediately to mind – and admitted that sometimes Vettel got under his skin, he couldn’t find it within himself to properly dislike him. “He’s basically a decent guy and I like his family…” Mark said.

Horner again: “They were halcyon days: massive competitors, big teams that we were up against, and some outstanding successes. Sebastian, at that stage, was very focused on achieving. Not just success, but going for and achieving records. They meant a lot to him. The fans did as well. I remember just seeing him collect every bit of memorabilia and gift he was given in Japan… Some of them were slightly weird but he kept absolutely everything, insisted on taking everything home. He was a pleasure to have in our team and we achieved some great things together.

“He just got better and better. In 2009 we, like him, were a young team, and we made a few mistakes. In 2010, he was the stand-out driver that year, had a lot of unreliability and, against the odds, won the championship at the last round. In 2011 he built on that, then ’12 was a super-tough year. He’d only won one race before we left Europe. And then won, I think, four on the bounce to go head-to-head with Fernando in that final race in Brazil.

“But by the time we got to 2013, he just absolutely dominated and achieved those nine victories in succession. That, for me, was his pinnacle year: he brought everything together and was just truly outstanding.”

When Horner refers to Vettel being formidable in the cars that they produced at that time, he is talking in particular about the double and blown diffuser Red Bulls which Sebastian was able to make work in slow corners in a way that Webber sometimes couldn’t. In the quick stuff, like Barcelona Turn 9 and Copse at Silverstone, Mark was often quicker.

The start of the hybrid era in 2014 brought to an end ‘the Vettel/Red Bull era’ as Mercedes invested huge time and resources into acing the return to turbocharged engines. The power unit was now the thing and Mercedes-engined cars had a clear advantage. Daniel Ricciardo was also something of a rude awakening for Sebastian, comfortably best-of-the-rest behind the dominant Hamilton/Rosberg Mercs with three victories in a season that was winless for Vettel, for the first time since that amazing victory with Toro Rosso in ’08.

Again, it was timely for Vettel that Fernando Alonso chose precisely that moment to fall out with Ferrari. Vettel’s childhood hero was Michael Schumacher and Sebastian, too, wanted to win a championship, hopefully multiple ones, for the Maranello marque.

In 2015 it didn’t take him long to return to the top step of the podium, taking a fine win in Malaysia in just his second race in red, the 40th victory of his F1 career. There were further wins in Hungary and, memorably, Singapore, as Vettel comfortably outpaced Ferrari team-mate Kimi Räikkönen, even though Mercedes was still in a class of its own.

“In 2013 he brought everything together and was truly outstanding”

After a winless 2016, Ferrari was a much more potent threat in 2017/18, with Vettel winning five races in each season and finishing championship runner-up to Hamilton in both seasons. But, in ’18 particularly, there were a catalogue of errors and the pressure was mounting internally. Then Ferrari chief, the late Sergio Marchionne, wanted to see Vettel measuring up to coming-man Charles Leclerc rather than “laggard” Räikkönen.

Vettel rapidly found he had his hands full with the young Monegasque, who was in just his second season of F1, and when his Ferrari contract was not renewed after Maranello’s ‘year from hell’ in 2020, Sebastian took up a two-year offer from Aston Martin.

With Lawrence Stroll’s money behind the team, Vettel probably hoped that the level of competitiveness would advance more rapidly than has been the case. Now 35, Vettel has become actively involved in promoting diversity and environmental awareness. You get the impression that he will not have any problems filling his time, even if he’s not entirely sure which direction he will head in immediately.

“Having watched him grow from a boy into a man, Sebastian is a very principled guy,” Horner says. “He has very strong beliefs. We’ve seen that in the latter stages of his career, very much standing up for things that he feels passionate about, and rightly so. His family is important to him and he’s a very private man. I’m so pleased to see he’s become an Instagramer recently! And while his Formula 1 career comes to an end, he’s got a lot that I’m sure he wants to do in his life. And I’m sure he’s going to go on and do some great things. It’ll be sad not to see him around, but I think the timing is right for him. It’s not nice to see him running around in the middle of the field, he doesn’t deserve to be back there.”

With his beliefs and his eloquent appearance on BBC’s Question Time earlier this year, it’s easy to conclude that Vettel has maybe outgrown F1. Or at least as Horner says, outgrown trundling around in the midfield. Yes, his intelligence and genuine interest in world issues outside of racing mean that he surely won’t be bored. But what will sate those competitive desires?

Sometimes, the extent of them got the better of him over the radio, such as when he swore at the late Charlie Whiting. Top blokes both, Charlie appreciated where Vettel was coming from and cut him some slack. Something that may not have been the case with someone for whom Charlie had less respect. And Vettel, a bit sheepish, was quick to apologise.

He says he’s got no interest in being a pundit, like so many ex-grand prix drivers. But I wouldn’t mind betting he’ll end up badly missing something that has dominated his life for the past 15 years. He’s a genuine fan too, with deep knowledge of and interest in the sport. He says he wouldn’t make a TV expert, but I can’t think of too many who would be better. A great ambassador for the sport too, it might take a while, but I’d bet strong money he will grace the paddock further down the road.