The MN editor hopes that the passage of time will be kind to Sebastian Vettel
At the French Grand Prix in mid-July, four-time Formula 1 World champion Sebastian Vettel was giving hints that he was on the verge of inking a new deal to remain with the Aston Martin Formula 1 team for a third season and beyond. Seven days later in the build-up to the Hungarian Grand Prix, he dropped the bombshell that he was retiring from the sport for good in a move which nobody had seen coming. And now the curtain has finally come down on an almost 300-race career.
Vettel is a contradiction, and nowhere was this more evident than when he went on the BBC’s high-profile Question Time programme in May this year. It was a brave decision for someone to take on the big issues of the day on a programme that was not in his native tongue, but he tackled it head on and gave full and effusive answers to all that was asked of him.
He was forthright on his views on the war in Ukraine and also about the need to make sure that everyone has access to fuel and heating, no matter what the increase in price. He also laid out his green credentials.
But, as the Question Time host Fiona
Bruce pointed out in a rather unfair manner, his green credentials were somewhat at odds with his British Racing Green credentials as a Formula 1 driver for Aston Martin.
Vettel handled the barb with good grace, but it was stinging. How can a driver who wants to save the world also go around polluting it with the exhaust gases from his F1 machine?
And that is the internal struggle that
Vettel has been weighing up over the last few months as the clock was ticking down on his time in grand prix racing.
So often he has been a voice for good: for example, hitting out against oppressive regimes in countries such as Saudi Arabia, a venue where he lined up on the grid in
2021 when it hosted its maiden grand prix. He is very candid about that.
And it is that forthrightness that will be lost from the sport, and that is perhaps why there has been such an outpouring of emotion from other drivers on the grid. Seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton feels like he has lost an ally who will speak out on issues that the Merc man cares deeply about too.
In his retirement statement, Vettel said:
“My passion [for racing in Formula 1] comes with certain aspects that I’ve learned to dislike. They might be solved in the future, but the will to apply that change has to grow much stronger and has to be leading to action today. Talk is not enough, and we cannot afford to wait. There is no alternative, the race
[to change the world] is under way.”
There is no doubt that Vettel will find no problem occupying himself now the final chequered flag has fallen on his top-flight career. But reflecting on his achievements and his armfuls of success and numerous records, it is hard to pinpoint just where he will stand in the list of great World champions. Winning four crowns puts him equal fourth on the all-time line-up, but is that enough?
Although he is engaging, humourous and has a great line in self-deprecation, it seems that the wider world struggles to embrace the boy from Heppenheim.
Perhaps it is the perception of Red Bull as the nouveau riche of the Formula 1 paddock when Austrian millions helped turn the squad into a frontrunning threat in the earlier part of this century. Maybe it was Vettel’s seemingly relentless winning record between 2010 and 2013 that simply turned the public off him?
Whatever the reasons might be, Vettel has struggled to appeal to the public consciousness in the same way as a driver like Jenson Button, Rubens Barrichello or
Mark Webber have done, for example. And that is a real puzzle.
It is notable, though, that those who have raced against him over the decade and more he has been on the Formula 1 grid have shown a level of support for the German which goes way beyond that which is normally seen.
That is probably a more accurate reflection of the impact he has made.
By rights, time should be kind to Vettel and make his achievements finally earn the recognition they deserve. The racer himself deserves that much. Farewell Seb.