The first time Sebastian Vettel took part in a Formula 1 weekend in 2006, it was so impressive that, in a way, he anticipated that his debut in the top category would come sooner rather than later.
However, almost a year had to pass from the day he set the fastest free time on Friday in his debut with BMW Sauber in Turkey and his first race. However, it didn’t really arrive when planned.
Sebastian Vettel
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Before that long-awaited day arrived for the German, at 19 years old, he had already accumulated 15 days of testing with an F1, in addition to seven other Fridays off.
But in 2007, since the Malaysian Grand Prix at the beginning of the season, he had not driven the BMW Sauber. Two long months, after the starters, Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica , lobbied not to have to give up any more track time during race weekends, since when Vettel got into practice that year, one of them had to give up your seat.
Following Kubica’s horrific crash in Montreal – in which he suffered a minor concussion, ankle injury and bruising – the Pole arrived in Indianapolis three days later intending to race. In fact, he took part in the previous official press conference and there he declared that he felt “as new”.
Vettel was one of the team’s two test drivers at the time, as there was also the German Timo Glock, who as well as having already raced in F1, knew the circuit. The team seemed to support Kubica’s intention to put the accident behind him by racing again as soon as possible, with Josef Leberer supervising him.
Choque from Robert Kubica, BMW Sauber F1.07
Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images
Choque de Robert Kubica, BMW Sauber F1 Team, F1.07,
Photo by: XPB Images
However, after a review of about 25 minutes with a series of tests whose results were compared with those obtained at the beginning of the season, the FIA doctors did not give him the green light to race.
“Yesterday I saw Robert [Kubica] for the first time after the accident and he was very well, so much so that I thought he was fit to race,” Vettel said after receiving the news, for which he was perhaps not fully prepared.
Contractually, BMW Sauber had to give him the chance over the Glock. A few days before his 20th birthday, Vettel faced his debut in Formula 1 and as the weekend progressed he seemed to move more like a fish in water, this in a season that was having a rookie, Lewis Hamilton, as the benchmark because He arrived there after getting his first victory in F1 and as leader of the world championship.
Vettel would confirm his potential by earning a place in Q3 in his first qualifying session, although in Q2, without the effect of fuel to start the race, he would fall half a second behind team-mate Nick Heidfeld.
Sebastian Vettel, test pilot of the BMW Sauber F1 Team with Dr. Mario Theissen, BMW Sauber F1 Team, B
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In the race, in the first corner as a starter in F1, he was about to have an accident when he went long under braking for turn 1, narrowly avoiding the crash against Heikki Kovalainen’s Renault. This made him fall from seventh to 11th place in the first lap, from where he would try to come back.
A run off the track by Giancarlo Fisichella on the second lap allowed him to move up to 10th position, where he would consolidate. The abandonment of his compatriots Heidfeld and Nico Rosberg in the last third of the race would leave him in eighth position.
In 2007, only the top eight scored, with which Vettel managed to score a point on his debut, the 67th driver to do so. In addition, at 19 years, 11 months and 14 days, he was the youngest to do so since Jenson Button added seven years ago for the first time at 20 years, 2 months and 7 days, when only the top six did.
Like Michael Schumacher, his second Formula 1 race was with a different team than his debut, although in his case, it would have to wait. It would not be until two months later, in August at the Hungaroring , that he returned dressed in Toro Rosso colors to take the seat of Scott Speed, who had come to the team as the winner of a selection among American drivers.
Somehow, Red Bull made sure to keep him within their jurisdiction and gave wings to his career in the top category. With Toro Rosso, his first points would come in China , in a rainy race in which he would achieve an excellent fourth place, leaving in the shadow what had happened days before in Japan, where he ended up colliding with Mark Webber’s Red Bull during a period of Safety Car.
15 years and four titles later, his career in Formula 1 has changed drastically, after a stage at Ferrari in which he failed to increase his number of wounds. Now at Aston Martin he is trying to push the team formerly known as Force India/Racing Point up. Will he get it?
↓ See all the photos of Vettel’s debut ↓
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