The surprise announcement of Sebastian Vettel’s retirement was an earthquake in the paddock, causing a series of unexpected movements, such as the signing of Fernando Alonso by Aston Martin, the arrival of Oscar Piastri at McLaren with his consequent legal battle with Alpine, or the landing of Pierre Gasly in the Enstone team as teammate of Esteban Ocon in 2023.
However, the German has grabbed many headlines after the news of his farewell to the highest category of motorsports, remembering how his sports career was and reviewing his best moments. In an interview on the website of his current team, the four-time world champion acknowledged that he did not regret anything he experienced during his time at Aston Martin, and also revealed who his toughest rivals were in the Great Circus, among others much more.
“Not at all,” he replied when asked if he would have changed anything from his two courses to Silverstone. “I don’t think it’s been a useless two years, although the results and the points we’ve got haven’t been what we expected. I’ve loved working with the team, meeting different people and different approaches.”
“Those two courses have been a great challenge because I was not familiar with driving at the back of the grid, it has been a new experience, difficult at times, and I have realized many things,” continued Vettel. “If you are in front, you only see what is in front, if you are behind, you only see what is behind, but you always look in front because you want to be there.”
“When you’re up front, you don’t look at the back because it doesn’t affect you and you don’t appreciate the work the teams behind do,” he said. “The fact that great results are not achieved does not mean that work is not the same”.
During the time when he was fighting for the world titles , Vettel battled wheel to wheel with two great names in the history of Formula 1, and considered them his toughest rivals in the Grand Circus.
“Lewis [Hamilton], especially when [Vettel] was at Ferrari,” said the German. Lewis has always been up there, and before that, it was probably Fernando [Alonso] when he was at Ferrari [from 2010 to 2014].
Precisely the Asturian will fill his gap in 2023, and he expressed his opinion about him: “Fernando doesn’t need any advice. I’m not sure he’ll accept any advice, but he doesn’t need it anyway, it’s taken so long and he’s seen so much, that he’ll be right”.
In addition to this, Vettel recalled how one of his best moments with Aston Martin in his two years with the team was, his podium in Baku: “Without a doubt. It was a race in which we were more competitive and when you are those things can happen “.
“We showed that we can have good races. There have been other races that we have executed very well, but we finished 10th, and nobody notices if you finish 10th,” he said before saying whether winning so much in his golden era with Red Bull was boring. “You get used to it, but when you don’t win anymore, you think about how good it would feel if you won again, and when you win again, it’s a great moment and it means more to you than the previous victory because of the emptiness in between. “.
There are only four Grand Prix left for him to say goodbye definitively, and he takes the situation with great humor: “It’s funny, many people say thank you, but I want to thank you more. If I did what I did and nobody was looking, without people in the stands, without emotions, it would mean nothing.
“I want to thank so many people for making my sports career, my life, what it is,” said Sebastian Vettel.
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