After 15 years in Formula 1, Sebastian Vettel is ready to call it quits. The 35-year-old German recently announced that he will retire at the end of the current 2022 season, thus marking the end of one of the most successful careers in F1 history.
Despite all of his success and dominance, especially early in his career, Vettel has expressed several times over the years that he doesn’t believe he will be remembered like other great F1 drivers once he retires, and that he does not need to be.
However, it is quite clear that Vettel’s body of work begs to differ. With all of his amazing achievements and accomplishments in the sport, he fully deserves to be remembered as one of Formula 1’s all-time greats.
So read on below as SBOTOP goes back in time to refresh your memory about the greatness of Sebastian Vettel.
Young Vettel rampages into F1 record books
Vettel burst onto the F1 scene with BMW Sauber and made his F1 debut at the ripe old age of 19, becoming the then-youngest F1 driver to take part in a Grand Prix.
He would move on to Toro Rosso halfway through the 2007 season, and his second season with the team would turn out to be a special one. The young German made more history as he became the youngest pole sitter when he grabbed pole at the Italian Grand Prix.
And he did the unthinkable later that weekend as he went on to win at Monza, becoming the youngest Grand Prix winner in F1 history at 21 years and 74 days. (Max Verstappen would then come along and obliterate that record.)
By this point, it looked clear to many that Vettel had a very bright future. As it turned out, the future was much sooner than many had expected.
Vettel moved to Red Bull at the start of the 2009 season, and after a slow start, he quickly emerged as one of the top drivers on the grid. The 22-year-old won four races that season and finished second to eventual world champion Jenson Button.
But Vettel’s seemingly inevitable rise to the top was finally realised as the Red Bull driver came out on top in a very tight four-horse title race to become the youngest-ever world champion at 23 years and 134 days, overtaking the great Lewis Hamilton.
That marked the start of one of the most dominant stretches in F1 history as Vettel would go on to win four world championships in a row, which put him in an exclusive list along with Juan Manuel Fangio, Schumacher, and subsequently, Lewis Hamilton.
Vettel set several more records during that amazing four-year stretch. He tied fellow German Michael Schumacher’s record for the most race wins in a single season (13) in 2011. And he shattered Schumi’s record of seven straight wins in a single season by recording nine in a row to end 2013.
With so many world championships and a handful of entries in the Formula 1 record books already at age 26, it was easy to assume that Vettel was well on his way toward becoming the all-time greatest driver in F1 history.
However, Vettel was finally knocked off their perch the following season by Lewis Hamilton, and he never quite found his way back.
Vettel falls short of expectations at Ferrari
After that disappointing 2014 season, Vettel made his ‘dream’ move to Ferrari in 2015. The Scuderia had not had a world champion driver since Kimi Raikkonen in 2007, and they were hoping Vettel’s arrival could bring back the glory days of Schumacher in the early 2000s.
Unfortunately, the dream turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. After a somewhat promising start, Vettel was unable to keep up with the two Mercedes drivers, Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. And the following season was even worse as Vettel finished a disappointing fourth in the drivers’ standings.
The 2017 and 2018 seasons went a bit better, but after once again starting strong, Vettel still finished a distant second to Hamilton, who was having his own Vettel-esque run of dominance.
Those two seasons turned out to be the high water mark of Vettel’s largely disappointing spell at Ferrari. After another dispiriting fifth-place finish in 2019, Vettel would plunge to an unfathomable 13th in 2020. By then, the writing was on the wall; his time at Ferrari was well and truly done, but not before leaving a significant dent in his legacy for some.
Vettel still a bonafide F1 legend
Vettel moved on to Aston Martin in 2021, and it hasn’t been all that successful. He had just three top-five finishes last season and his Formula 1 2022 odds have not been much better, with no top-five finish to date.
But Vettel’s underwhelming time in Ferrari – which wasn’t entirely his fault – should not detract too much from his overall legacy. In his prime, he was as dominant a driver as there has ever been in F1. As things stand, he ranks third all-time with 53 wins (behind only all-time leader Hamilton and Schumacher) and tied for fourth with four world championships.
Those are truly incredible achievements, ones that have earned Vettel the right to be remembered among the sport’s all-time greats – whether he likes it or not. Here’s hoping he can create a few more Formula 1 2022 highlights before he drives off into the sunset.
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