Sebastian Vettel. An young German Hot-shoe with a great sense of humor, who made F1 popular to the public with his charismatic character and breathtaking performances around the circuit, has finally joined social media, which means only one thing, the end of his world class career in F1. This post is a humble tribute for Seb, recollecting his iconic moments and journey to the pinnacle of motor-sports. Sebastian Vettel was born in the 3rd July of 1987, at Heppenheim of West Germany, he had shown his taste for racing from his younger ages. Having taken the first taste of racing in the age of three, Sebastian showed his talent in racing from the first stage when he started racing in carting series after five years. Gradually he began mastering the skill on carting and in the year 1998 he was accepted to the Red-Bull Junior racing team and won some well known cups like the Junior Monaco Carting Championship and others in 2001. Climbing up the different levels of racing competitions, he took the first taste of Formula 1 in 2006 Turkey testing session where he became the third driver of BMW Sauber F1 team when Robert Cubica, the Polish icon, replaced Jacques Villinevue. Vettel made his debut in the same year, bagging the record of the youngest driver on the paddock of his time to make a race week debut, on the 2007 USA GP at Indianapolis circuit replacing the injured Cubica, with the age of 19 years and 53 days. He also collected his first penalty in the same race, a nine second time penalty for exceeding speed limits in the pit lane.
He made his first proper F1 race debut in the year 2007 with BMW Sauber as said earlier and he scored his first points on the day out at the Indianapolis circuit, qualifying 7th and finishing P8. His F1 career got into full swing motion when he got a chance to show his skills with his parent team, red-bull racing's sister team Torro-Rosso, when he replaced Scott Speed, the American racing driver, who was dropped mid season due to inefficient performance. His first proper F1 race appearance was at the 2007 Hungarian GP, where he finished P20 in Qualifying and finished the race in P 16 after four others retired from the race. The Japanese GP, was another black-mark on his career, but he did well in the qualifying, taking his Torro-Rosso all the way up to P 9. But in the race it was all bad luck for him as he struggled and eventually retired from the race at the 46th lap due to collision damage with his then-to-be-teammate Mark Webber. That was probably the start of the German-Australian rivalry which set the paddock on fire at the prime days of Vettel. But the very next race held at Asia, the 2007 Chinese GP saw Vettel getting back in shape and having his then-career-best finish in the race. Qualifying way back in P 12 and fighting all the way up to P 4 gaining a total of 8 positions after a seemingly exhausting race in mixed conditions was where Vettel started finding his groove. This magnificent performance by Vettel set out talks about his talent and the amount of speed he milked from the Torro-Rosso.
The very next season, 2008 turned out to have a bad start with three consecutive DNFs and it was when they reached Monaco that Seb Started finding the rhythm of the season and the new car. Qualifying himself way back in P 18, Vettel just set the track on fire with such a mesmerizing drive taking his Torro-Rosso all the way up to P 5, all this in the tightest track of F1, the streets of Monaco with a car capable of fighting the middle and lower middle orders, it was a finish clearly worth of a victory. The 2008 season, had hidden a trophy for Vettel, and did not find it until the Italian GP. The Italian GP saw Vettel taking up his maiden victory of F1, which was from his very first pole which gave him another record of the youngest pole-sitter in the history of the sport and to make it better, he won the race building up a gap of 12.5 seconds over the second position, Heikki Kovalainen of McLaren Mercedes. And at the end of the season, that was the only win for the team, Torro-Rosso as it turned out. This victory out of the blue was so good that the media started comparing him to Michael Schumacher the Great, and it gave him the name "Baby Schumi". Also he was selected as the rookie of the season, 2008 after his beyond the age performance in the mixed conditions and the wet track.
2009 season was something like a dream for Vettel as he was promoted into the parent team, red-bull replacing David Coulthard the 13 times GP winner, and had a superb debut race at the 2009 Australian GP until fate played its role in the form of the polish racing legend, Robert Cubica. A crash with Cubica forced him to retire. He did compensate for that with the next few races. He went on to take his maiden pole position on the Chinese GP which at the end he won and gave the team their maiden pole. The form continued for the next few races, The Silver Stone GP and the inaugural Abu Dhabi GP which let him finish on the second top spot behind the 2009 World Champion, Jensen Button. He had a blistering drive at the 2009 Japanese Grand Prix. An absolute masterclass where, from the pole position he took the win leading every single lap. That season, Vettel took the award for the fastest lap given by DHL.
The next season, the 2010 season started well for Vettel as he took the first pole position of the season in the Bahrain GP, and was on a comfortable lead until a spark plug failure made him tremble down the order and finish the race in P4. He posted his first win of the season at the Malaysian GP. Sebastian Vettel at the Australian Grand Prix was appointed as the Director of Grand Prix Drivers Association. The spark for the great Webber-Vettel war got ignited when the went to Turkey. Seb and Mark were head to head on points before turkey but Webber was ahead as he got more wins in his name. They both started quiet well and was running peacefully with Webber first and Vettel second. Things got heated up when Vettel tried to pass Webber for the lead which resulted in them colliding to each other putting Seb out of the race, what turned the heat up was neither of them took the responsibility of the crash. Vettel clinched his first world championship trophy at the 2010 Abu-Dhabi GP and went on to take three more, getting leveled on with another legend, Juan Manual Fangio and adding a bunch of records to his name. He got to share the track with his idle and his biggest inspiration, the ever remembering, Michael Schumacher, the legend of Ferrari. With four world titles grabbed consecutively and with a bunch of records, whole lot of points, podiums and fastest laps, by 2014 Seb parted ways with Red-Bull, a 15 year long partnership, after giving them 4 constructors titles, and joined hands with Ferrari, the most successful team in the history of the sport following the path of the man he looked up to, fantasying another title with them, just like his idle.
Having had the first race with Ferrari in 2015, Seb shared his seat with the iceman cometh, Kimi Raikkonen, the 2007 world champion. Joining Ferrari with the hope of a fifth world title, Seb worked as hard as he can with the team for that fifth one. For the first few years, the combination of Sebastian and Ferrari turned out to be a brutal one. Together they raised a huge threat to the unbeaten journey of Mercedes, the silver arrows. Seb fought hard against Mercedes, still maintaining the much needed respect but every single time the trophy slipped away from his hands at the last moment. 2018 was one of those years were he has performed immaculately well but with the unfortunate crash in the Home GP, Germany 2018 took the championship away from him, and that was the closest he could come in challenging the the rivals Mercedes. But the tide turned to the opposite direction by the last two years, 2019 and 2020 when Ferrari was accused for cheating through a technical anomaly and was punished for cheating, as a result they trembled down the orders and had their worst nightmare of a season in 2020, the last year with Ferrari. Seb too got affected with all these chaos happening around, he finished with his lowest ever points on the bag, with just 33 and a P3 at the Turkish GP being his best finish of the season. Ferrari, by the end of the season announced that they are parting ways with Sebastian Vettel, which obviously was sad for everyone who was on the paddock, and then he joined Aston Martin F1 team. I personally think why Seb left Ferrari was because of because he was pretty disappointed with the performance of the car that he couldn't get that fifth world title with Ferrari even after craving for it so badly. There are a few more reasons, there were a tonne of conflicts within the team and at the final year, these conflicts resulted in the lack of team coordination and chemistry which are the two important factors in the smooth functioning of the team.
After parting ways with the team in red, Seb joined hands with the team in green, the British team, Aston Martin F1 team replacing Sergio Perez who went to Red-Bull replacing Pierre Gasly. This was in a way ironic because now his car is powered by the power unit from his greatest rivals back in the Ferrari days. The Aston Martin Days were not as good as expected since it was way different, less powerful car from that of Ferrari, but he made the Sebastian magic work, scored his first points at the day out in Monaco, finishing P 5 and gave them their maiden podium, finishing his highest ever with the team, P2 finish at Azerbaijan GP, Baku. Also he fought all the way up to P2 in the Hungarian GP but was disqualified after failing to submit the required fuel sample for test. Even with a midfield potential car given to him, Seb made the best of it. Because he was awarded the maiden award for the most overtakes done in a season with 132 overtakes with the green tractor. The second year with Aston Martin was not as good as the first year as he was shot with covid 19 and he was replaced by Nico Hulkenburg for the first two races. And it was by the July he announced his retirement after creating a social media account on Instagram as I said earlier.
Apart from open wheel racing, Seb was an active participant on the Race Of Champions, also known as the ROC, where he raced alongside his idle, Michael Schumacher where both represented their home team, Germany, with whom he won the titles from 2007 to 2012. Then he took a break for 3 years and came back alongside other German teammate, Nico Hulkenberg. In his return to ROC, he won his very first individual ROC title beating Tom Kriestensen in the final. The team of Nico and Sebastian finished runners up in the 2015 season. The 2017 ROC was won by the team Germany, even though Seb was eliminated in the first heat of individual competition but won the cup for his country by himself after his teammate Pascal Wehreline got injured after a crash earlier. Two years later he along with Mick Schumacher, the son of Michael, took their spot on the ROC again and this time they finished runners up. Then in 2022 he went all the way up to final and was beaten there by Sebastian Lobe.
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After this eventful 17 years of formula 1, Now Sebastian Vettel is looking forward to spend some time with his family. Wishing you all the very best wishes and a happy retirement with your family. Thank you Sebastian for everything you have done to make the sport what it is right now, it was our immense pleasure watching you driving for Red-Bull, Ferrari and Aston Martin. You are an absolute Jewel of the sport, we are forever grateful to you for giving us all the cute and wholesome moments in the sport, moreover winning the four consecutive world titles is the icing on the cake. Even leaving the fifth title as an illusive dream, you have made your spot in the minds of us racing fans and on the top position with the iconic legends.
Every journey that starts has to end at some point, whatever we say that's how it works. Its so sad to see you leaving but that's how things should be... Parting ways with you is one of the hardest things as a follower of the sport, but yeah wishing you all the very best from the bottom of my heart, yeah at the end we, all the fans want you to be happy, and still we hope to see you around the paddock. For all the funny, cute, wholesome angry and happy moments you've created, for all the achievements you have bagged and for being a true man of inspiration on and off track just like Lewis, Danke Seb! Danke Schon!
