Sebastian Vettel is one of the most talented drivers on the grid, possibly even more so than young guns such as Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc. However, in recent years, things haven't been going so well for him. Let's dive into why that was but also why he is likely to do well in an Aston Martin car.
First, Sebastian's career got off to an outstanding start, when, in his first full season in Formula One, he took pole and won a treacherous race at Monza, in a Toro Rosso. This was even more impressive than Pierre Gasly's recent win at Monza, just because there was no luck really involved here. Vettel just had an amazing weekend, and he mastered the tricky conditions to win the race, while others struggled. The rest of his season was highly impressive as well and so he was brought in for 2009 to replace the outgoing David Coulthard at Red Bull, in only his second full season in Formula One.
- Vettel claimed his first ever pole position and win at Monza in 2008 (Image taken from reddit.com)
He went on to take Red Bull's first ever win and pole position at the Chinese Grand Prix, and he also won in Great Britain, Japan and Abu Dhabi. He finished second in the Drivers standings, beating his much more experienced teammate, Mark Webber, and only finishing behind the Brawn GP car of Jenson Button. Therefore, if Brawn GP hadn't come up with their innovative idea of a double rear diffuser, then Vettel would've won the championship in first season with Red Bull, his second full season in F1 and all while he was merely 22 years old.
For the following season, Brawn GP had been bought by Mercedes and was not a frontrunning team, so Red Bull were tipped as the favourites going into it. However, Ferrari also had a very strong season, with Fernando Alonso the main challenger to Vettel for the title, along with his teammate. Alonso had been leading the championship for most of the season but his teammate, Felipe Massa had not had as much success, meaning that after Red Bull's 1-2 finish in Brazil, they secured the Constructors Championship for the first time in their history. However, the Drivers Championship was to go all the way to the last race, Abu Dhabi. Four drivers could have won the championship after that race. Alonso was leading, followed by Webber, who was seven points behind, Vettel, who was fifteen points behind and Lewis Hamilton, who was 24 points behind Alonso. Vettel started on pole, leading Hamilton, Alonso, Button and then Webber. In the race, both Webber and Alonso pitted early, but then struggled to get through the traffic, with Abu Dhabi being what it is, and Vettel was able to come home to win the race and, in doing so, become the youngest ever Formula One World Champion, with Alonso coming home a frustrating seventh and Webber eighth.
- Vettel became the youngest ever Formula One World Champion at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in 2010, at 23 years old (Image taken from edition.cnn.com)
In 2011, Vettel got off to a flying start, winning six of the first nine races and coming second in the other three. He secured his second title with four races remaining, after a dominant season, and also helped Red Bull to their second title as well. 2012 was a much closer season, where reliability issues, not to mention collisions, meant that Alonso was leading the championship by 39 points with seven races to go. However, wins in Singapore, Japan, Korea and India meant that Vettel was leading the championship by 13 points going into the final round at Brazil. Despite a first lap incident, when Vettel collided with Bruno Senna and spun around, he recovered to finish sixth at the flag and take his third World Championship by three points.
2013 was to be another highly impressive and dominant year for the German, as he won 13 races, including winning every single one of the last nine races, to take a fourth title with three races remaining. At the end of the season, Mark Webber left the sport, and was replaced by the young Australian, Daniel Ricciardo. 2014 looked set to be another year of Vettel dominance but that was not the case. Vettel struggled all season, failing to win a single race and being beaten in the championship by Ricciardo, while Mercedes surprisingly dominated, with their two drivers finishing first and second. This was the first example of Vettel not performing well when faced with a young upstart.
For 2015, Sebastian joined Ferrari, partnering his friend Kimi Raikkonen, and looking to emulate his hero's, Michael Schumacher's, success for the fabled team in red. In the second race of the season, in Malaysia, Vettel won the race, giving Ferrari their first win for two years. However, he struggled slightly in the remainder of the season, finishing third overall, but, with 3 wins and thirteen podiums, he described the season as a miracle nonetheless. A very frustrating season followed for the German, as Mercedes' dominance was better than ever before. He failed to win a race all season and finished a distant fourth, behind the two Mercedes and his old teammate at Red Bull, Daniel Ricciardo.
- Vettel's first win for Ferrari was a very memorable day for both him and Ferrari, at the 2015 Malaysian Grand Prix (Image taken from scuderiafans.com)
The next couple of years though, Seb really brought the fight to Mercedes, with close battles that he just lost out on. 2017 saw him leading the championship at the summer break by 14 points, but Mercedes returned to domination after the break, and he lost the title lead at the Italian Grand Prix. He never retook it and finished the season second in the standings, nearly fifty points adrift of Hamilton. The following season, being dubbed as 'the Fight for Five', saw two quadruple world champions, Vettel and Hamilton, line up on the same grid as each other for the first time in history. Vettel started strongly once again, with the championship battle very close until at Vettel's home race, after he had been leading from start to finish, he slid off the track and out of the race in very difficult conditions, losing the championship lead which he would not recover. Lewis Hamilton went on to win his fifth world title in Mexico with two races remaining.
2019 saw his teammate and friend, Kimi Raikkonen, replaced at Ferrari by the highly rated Charles Leclerc. Leclerc had claimed the F2 Title in 2017, and had a very impressive 2018 at Sauber, and was now being paired up against a four-time world champion. Going into the season, Ferrari informed Leclerc that Vettel would be the number one driver and he would be the number two. However, at the Bahrain Grand Prix, while Vettel spun as he was passed by Lewis Hamilton, Leclerc went on to take what should have been his first win, if not for his engine losing power in the latter stages of the race, and instead just taking his first podium. From that point on, Leclerc knew how fast he was and knew that he could beat Vettel and fight for wins. Neither driver managed that, despite a very impressive German Grand Prix for Vettel, where he finished second from last on the grid, until the Belgian Grand Prix.
On a very sombre weekend, after the tragic death of F2 racer Anthoine Hubert, Leclerc took pole and won, while Vettel didn't even finish on the podium. Then, at Monza, Leclerc took another pole and win, while Vettel had a disaster of a race, after he spun round early on and then came back onto the track unsafely, as he pushed Lance Stroll off the track. He was awarded a ten second stop-go penalty and ended up finishing 13th. He did manage to get a win at Singapore though, after Leclerc got pole for the third race running and was leading the race until Vettel overcut the young Monegasque and took the lead of the race. In the next race, at Sochi, Ferrari had put in place an agreement where Leclerc would give Vettel a slipstream into Turn 1, so Vettel could overtake Hamilton. So, Leclerc gave Vettel the slipstream but Ferrari had underestimated the power of the slipstream at Sochi. Vettel indeed overtook Hamilton but also his teammate. Leclerc, obviously aggravated, asked the team to get Vettel to let him by, which they did. But Vettel didn't want to, making excuses and charging off into the lead. However, Vettel's ERS failed a lap after entering the pits, and he was forced to retire. His stranded car brought out a safety car, allowing the Mercedes to pit and costing Leclerc the win. It was a bad day for the Ferrari crew.
Hamilton soon won the title, without any real challenge, and Ferrari didn't make any headlines until the penultimate round in Brazil. In a crazy race, where the two drivers could easily have got themselves a podium, they collided and retired, with most people putting the blame on Vettel. While they were unlucky to both have so much damage from a small collision, the collision was caused by Seb coming left into Leclerc on the straight. Ferrari finished second in the Constructors, but Max Verstappen in the Red Bull finished third in the Drivers Standings, ahead of Leclerc and then Vettel. He had once again not performed well under pressure from a young upstart. In the off-season, Vettel found out that he had lost his seat at Ferrari for 2021. He was to be replaced by Carlos Sainz and the options for him weren't plentiful. However, he found a seat at Racing Point, now Aston Martin, for 2021, alongside Lance Stroll.
- Vettel and Leclerc collided at the Brazilian Grand Prix in 2019, taking both drivers out of the race (Image taken from formula1.com)
2020 was an extremely challenging year for Ferrari, as their pace was sometimes so poor that their cars failed to make it out of Q1. However, Charles Leclerc shined, taking two podiums and finishing eighth in the Drivers Standings, while Vettel took one podium and finished thirteenth, sixty five points off his teammate and only scoring a total of 33 points. With an emotional goodbye to Ferrari at Abu Dhabi, Seb left behind five partly successful and partly frustrating years at Ferrari, with 14 wins there, as he joins Aston Martin for 2021. Many people aren't expecting much from him, given his last two years. However, here is why they are wrong.
Vettel has always performed well when his teammate hasn't been much of a threat. With Webber at Red Bull, he was able to shine and with Raikkonen at Ferrari. However, when a super-talented rookie comes along like Daniel Ricciardo in 2014 or Charles Leclerc in 2019, the pressure has been too much for him. However, Lance Stroll is not really a super-talented driver. He would have never gotten into F1 without his father's money and he certainly would have never held his seat in a place like Racing Point, where Perez was released but him kept, without his father's money. There are no significant expectations surrounding Stroll, and while he is not as bad as people sometimes make out, taking pole position at Turkey in 2020 and having two podiums to his name, he is not a young, promising upstart by any means. Therefore, Stroll should be just another Webber or Raikkonen in the mind of Sebastian, and the pressure should be a lot weaker.
Also, Vettel won't really be fighting for wins or championships in the same way so that lifts some of the pressure as he isn't in the public eye as much. In addition, his title-winning experience will help the team achieve their goals, his underlying talent will give him and Aston Martin some impressive results and his charming personality, assuming things aren't going horribly, should improve the team's morale. All in all, the stage is set for Sebastian to bring Aston Martin success in the coming years. Maybe it won't be what Lawrence Stroll has been predicting, in championships and many wins, but the team should be able to challenge the top teams on some occasions and maybe even grab a few wins along the way.