The season is already two races old, but Sebastian Vettel still rises until this weekend in Australia in his Aston Martin (the race on Sunday from 6:55 am live at SKY). Positive corona tests had previously prevented his start to the new race year, but Vettel did not miss Vettel. The AMR22 equipped with a Mercedes engine belongs to the previous disappointments, his substitute Nico Hülkenberg hit Wacker, but was only 12th and 17th in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, Lance Stroll was not much better. Even Aston Martin is there without a point, as the only team next to Williams.
- New factory in Silverstone
- Political fight against climate change and abuses in the world
- “The reasons are clear, it rains a lot of money”
“We are not where we want to be,” Vettel now turns openly in the interview with the Pay TV channel Sky. In free training on Friday in Melbourne, he was not only 1.8 seconds slower than his former teammate Charles Leclerc in the again very fast Ferrari, Vettel had to park his boliding prematurely at the track and cool the smoking engine with the fire extinguisher. “We know that the car can do much more. The question is whether we can ever get there or if we have to think out something else.” Confident sounds only conditionally.
New factory in Silverstone
The four-time world champion from Germany should advance the team crucial. In 2021, Team owner Lawrence Stroll set a five-year plan, after which Aston Martin is to drive around the World Cup title 2025. A new factory is being completed in Silverstone, with the Luxembourg Mike Krack came a team boss, the Vettel still knows from his early days at BMW-clean. “The experience that I was always at the front and knows that I can be ahead, is the claim. But that we are far away from the moment, too,” explains the 34-year-old, the last season, his first in the Aston Martin, even as a twelfth closed.
Political fight against climate change and abuses in the world
Through his corona infection, Vettel had at least the terrible moments spared in Jeddah, when the fear around in the paddock. Two weeks ago in Saudi Arabia, rockets hit the route in a refinery of the oil giant Aramco, recently the main sponsor of Vettel’s team. “At the moment I was glad that I was not on site because I think it was a terrible situation,” he says. But the family father, who has long since been politically positioned as a fighter against climate change and grievances in the world, would have been in conflict anyway. “On the one hand, there was a clear voice that I had said: I would not drive. On the other hand, I was not on site and it was a joint decision and I would have been part of this joint decision.”
“The reasons are clear, it rains a lot of money”
Even before the Grand Prix was deleted in Russia, Vettel had announced that there did not agree on Ukraine because of the attack on Ukraine “you have to pull a border somewhere, where it is no longer reasonable,” he says today. “We’re not going to Russia this year and everyone understands why. In Saudi Arabia has been the conflict with Yemen since 2015.” Why the Formula 1 is still in the authoritarian state, even after the executions of the last weeks, 81 were it Alone in a day in mid-March? Vettel is looking for no excuses: “The reasons are clear, it rains a lot of money.” And he also earned in Formula 1 not bad.
But Vettel does not just want to be a sportman. “We have to find a better way in sports,” he asks. That’s why you should open the money that the Formula 1 of States such as Saudi Arabia should disclose, in order to invest again, that “the situation improves there. We want to move something and to move something, you need money”. In the end, it’s about deeds and credibility. Also in dealing with Russia, such as a stop of coal and gas imports. “I understand the rat cock that is th properly when you say, you turn the cock from today to tomorrow. But I think the risk is with the crazy on the other.” Vettel will continue to be interested in world politics, including Australia. And at the same time, he struggles that Aston Martin is not dropped out on the track, otherwise he would really be “down under”.