Sebastian Vettel in F1, it’s over! Fifteen years after his debut in the queen category of motorsport, the 35-year-old driver bows out. A decision “hard to take” he explained. “I thought about it a lot. At the end of the year, I want to take time to think about what I want to do next“, he said, in a press release from his Aston Martin team, released before the Hungarian Grand Prix this weekend.
“As a father, I want to spend more time with my family“, he also added in order to justify this choice. The former Ferrari driver also wanted to thank “everyone, starting with the fans without whom Formula 1 could not exist“. As a reminder, he left his mark on the sport since he won four world championship titles (in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013) with Red Bull, and 53 Grands Prix. Just that! To measure the he extent of his talent, only Briton Lewis Hamilton (103 wins) and his compatriot Michael Schumacher (91) have done better than him in F1 history.
A committed driver
This departure greatly saddened his replacement at Ferrari: the Monegasque Charles Leclerc, who wanted to pay tribute to him via his Instagram account. “What person and what pilot. We will miss you“, he wrote in the caption of a photo of him in the company of the German.