Vettel: Call me boring but don’t dare label me dirty

SEBASTIAN VETTEL has cast himself as the anti-Lewis Hamilton, a man content with his family, his dog and his lawnmower. Ahead of the British Grand Prix, Ferrari’s world championship contender offered a rare glimpse into his well-fortified private life. The contrast with Hamilton is stark. Whereas red-carpet habitue Hamilton flew here from glitzy Monaco, Vettel came from his sleepy farmhouse by Lake Constance in Switzerland. The German still has no social media account. He has no jewellery, only wears a watch when sponsors demand that he must, and writes his notes in a neat hand. ‘I don’t feel special because of what I do,’ he said. ‘F1 is a job. It would be wrong if I looked in the mirror and said that is what I am. I am a lot of other things — family, friends.’ He admitted to having two children, but would never reveal their names. Hanna is his partner or, perhaps, his wife — he would not tell which. She is certainly the mother of his children, a long-time partner offering the unfussy stability that is central to his life at the age of 31 years and three days. ‘I enjoy mowing the lawn, I go shopping, I visit the cinema,’ he added of his ‘normal, boring’ life. He has 15 cars, mind, although one is a little Fiat 500, which turns heads when he pulls up at the lights for its plainness. He is happy to wait alongside hoi polloi to get into galleries. ‘If I don’t want to see something enough to queue, I won’t go,’ he said. ‘I don’t go in to places through a special back door. I am a sportsman, not a celebrity.’ Vettel has won at Silverstone once, in 2009, and he appreciated the crowd’s warm embrace even though most of the throng had been rooting for Jenson Button. But for all his family-man image and an engaging personality — a lover of comedy and British eccentrics — Vettel has been accused of playing dirty. That allegation was strongest when he drove into Hamilton in Baku last season. ‘I didn’t intend to be dirty in Baku,’ said Vettel, who leads Hamilton by a point going into Sunday’s clash. ‘I wasn’t dirty. It was a reaction. Did it lose me my race? Yes. Would I do it again? No. Do I ever get angry so I feel like hurting anyone or going mad? No. I am nervous before the race, yes. It shows I still care.’