Vettel: not 'one among many'

Presenting him as a 4-time F1 World Champion sounds perhaps a bit out of time because Vettel is one of those cases in which the evolution of the character, compared to the beginning of his career (those in which he collected the titles for which he will be in the annals of Motorsport) were there and have indeed been felt. Assimilable to the generation of Lewis Hamilton (he is only two years younger), Seb is, along with the 7-time World Champion, one of the few figures in the Formula 1 environment, especially in recent years, who has never held back from expressing his opinion - even and especially when it could lead to serious reflection.

On these pages, we have given him ample space, especially when he spoke out about our specific world. His words in 2019 were memorable: "Nico (Rosberg, ed.) and I used to have fun karting and racing against each other. But if we were doing that today, I think our careers would have stopped pretty quickly, because we simply wouldn't have the money in our pockets to do it!" Those who think that these are easy platitudes to express in a press conference would do well to remember that the German has spoken out on a broad range of topics and issues that in more or less tangible ways are part of motorsport, and his tone - always staying outside of controversy and sterile publicity-seeking - and never has anyone been able to contradict him in a serious and proven way, whether it was about pollution, human rights or the 'commercial drift' of the sport. Vettel is one of the few figures who, in a sport in constant crisis with its contradictions, has managed to combine great passion with an accurate and objective view of reality, from which motor racing too often loses touch. The World titles as a very young man, the long history in Ferrari with that World Championship that never came, and the challenge taken up in these two years with Aston Martin, give us a complete picture of a driver who reached Formula 1 practically as a teenager and came out as a complete man, in all respects.

In conclusion, for the sake of the record, we must remember that Vettel was an excellent kart racer, especially in Junior: a European Championship in what is now called OKJ in 2001 and a 6th place always in the European the following year in ICA (now OK) and the first Red Bull junior drivers program  to make the entire journey from karting to the Formula 1 World Title (for now the only one together with Verstappen, among many others who with that livery instead did not achieve the desired results). Happy going Sebastian, whatever you decide to do next...