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Sebastian Vettel’s Formula 1 future will likely be an open topic for a while this season.
Vettel is intrigued by F1’s new regulations, excited by the project he is part of at Aston Martin and has no predetermined conditions for the team to meet in order for him to sign a new contract.
But the four-time world champion does not know if he will stay in F1 beyond 2022, or when he’ll make that decision.
“This year is a new year in many ways,” says Vettel. “And I think we will go step by step.
“I have no cut-offs in mind, not a number in terms of where the team needs to be or where we need to race.
“I think we will see where we are. And then obviously at some point, we start looking a little bit more forward into the future.
“But I think we focus on the start of the season for now.”
Vettel and Aston Martin did not have the first season together that they hoped for or expected in 2021.
Reliability problems in pre-season testing hurt Vettel’s acclimatisation and the AMR21 was hamstrung by the floor rule changes that hurt the low-rake Mercedes and Aston Martin concepts the most.
So even once he was more comfortable in his new surroundings he didn’t have the podium-challenging (even race-winning!) calibre of car the team had enjoyed the year before. And by Vettel’s own admission, he was still making mistakes.
Vettel reckons Aston Martin spent three quarters of the season with the same car, as it was one of the first teams to switch its full focus to 2022 and the new technical regulations. That means the short-term pain suffered last year could pay the team and its star driver back this season.
It needs to, because Vettel is accustomed to fighting at the front. And it seems that is a prerequisite for him to stick around longer.
“The thing is, I had a while now in the sport, and I had good years and not so good years, but mostly, I would say good years, great years with a very competitive car and competitive team,” Vettel says.
“Now, no doubt I’m in a very competitive team. The team spirit is great. And the goal is clear. We want to progress and win.
“So, ultimately, having had the path that I had so far, I’m mostly interested in winning.
“And that will determine what the future brings.”
It will at least be a different experience for Vettel and Aston Martin this year. Vettel admits the team knew from the start of 2021 that it would be “a long and difficult season”.
Now the new cars, Aston Martin’s early switch, and the capacity to develop with the team having no budget concerns make for a much more encouraging situation. Especially as Aston Martin is working its way up to the budget cap after years of austerity while F1’s biggest hitters are still cutting back.
That’s why Aston Martin seemed like such an attractive option in the first place. It has grand ambitions and the means to achieve them, so if it succeeds then it will be the team that Vettel needs in order to care about staying in F1.
This year, Vettel acknowledges, is a “true test” of whether it can deliver on the potential – and part of that will be how he sees the team adjust to losing team principal Otmar Szafnauer, who has been succeeded by Vettel’s old BMW colleague Mike Krack.
“The truth is the team is growing,” Vettel says. “Obviously, having a shuffle in management is always a bit of a hiccup or shake-up. And it will take time to overcome.
“But hopefully we manage to pull together and, despite growing in size, become leaner or more efficient in our processes.
“This year will be a true test for us and we will see how good we are because last year we couldn’t show anything because we didn’t focus on bringing any updates.
“Whereas this year it’s all about this set of regulations, this year’s cars or this generation of cars and we will be able to show what we can produce.
“And we should be measured based on that.”
We can be confident that Vettel will be leading that scrutiny because he has little interest in being in F1 for the sake of it, and he’s a forthright person.
But he’s also open-minded. A change of team boss isn’t a sign to him that the wheels are coming off Aston Martin. Krack is a very highly-rated recruit from BMW Motorsport and Vettel knows him of old. So Vettel is, for now, entirely of the view that Aston Martin can progress the way it needs to, even though the man who was key to Vettel signing (Szafnauer) is no longer there.
“I’ve always liked Otmar and got along with Otmar, I think it’s difficult not to get along with him,” Vettel says.
“But he definitely had a very central role in the team, a lot of guys knew him because he had been there for so long.
“And for sure, it’s a big reshuffle. But looking forward, I think Mike is great, and I’m very much looking forward to working with him again.
“As you mentioned, he is highly rated by everyone who’s shared the way with him. So let us see, is the honest answer, because it’s been some years but he’s a great guy and has a great spirit.
“So hopefully it’s a strong addition to the team.”
A final factor worth considering is what the new-look F1 era brings in terms of driving. Vettel has been one of the harshest critics of the V6 turbo-hybrid era, primarily because he loves older, screaming engines, but also because the Mercedes domination and F1’s ever-increasing downforce dependence made racing worse.
F1’s rule changes in the pursuit of closer, better racing will be important for Vettel to decide if this is a championship he’s actually interested in being part of.
Vettel is certainly curious to discover the new machines. But the impact they have on the pecking order and what Aston Martin can do with them remains his primary interest.
“From a driving point of view, the main challenge for all of us will be adapting to these cars,” Vettel says.
“They feel a bit different driving in the sim, but I think it will be different in real life. Then I think it depends where we are.
“Ideally, the challenge will be to fight for victories and a lot of podiums, because we are so competitive. But at this point, I don’t have any expectations, because right now you look at a car and we’ve only seen fakes until [Aston Martin’s launch], you have no idea what is right and what is wrong.
“So I think we need to relate some laptimes and some track experience to it, and then we get a better impression. The goals follow.
“But one of the key objectives for this year is to show that we are a working structure, and that we can either build a very good car from the start or improve our car throughout the season. Or do both.”
It’s not a given that Vettel will stay in F1 beyond 2022, and even he is apparently unsure when he’ll even start thinking about that properly.
What will eventually make up his mind, though, is already quite clear.
