Sebastian Vettel ends Formula 1 career after the season

Esome will breathe a sigh of relief, finally: Vettel will stop at the end of the season! The news of the day of Formula 1 this Thursday triggered completely different reactions from the outside. Eulogies for the German racing driver, the four-time world champion. What an excellent pilot. Maybe a bit old after the unworthy end at Ferrari and the unfulfilled dream of victory in an Aston Martin. But three days before the Grand Prix in Hungary on Sunday (3 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for Formula 1 and on Sky), the 35-year-old from Heppenheim had to be honored.

Do you remember that sensational first win in Toro Rosso in 2008? On the cult slope of Monza, in the rain. Michael Schumacher had scarcely left the stage in 2006 when another German stirred up the industry. It was probably fortunate that only the boss of the BMW team at the time recognized the maturity for the premier class, did not assert himself and Vettel ended up at Red Bull, the institution for very hard, very challenging, but unerring promotion of gifted people: fast, intelligent, tech-savvy and very ambitious.

Vettel has other than Formula 1 in mind

The junior trainer, Toro Rosso boss Franz Tost, suspected what could become of it: youngest world champion, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013. The story of the boy from Hesse, who first had to learn to lose, as Ferrari’s hope received as a legitimate Schumacher successor, but then treated unfairly and finally sacked over the phone by Ferrari’s team boss Mattia Binotto, could be told very quickly. At Formula 1 pace. 53 races won in 15 years. There are only two so far that have been more successful. Lewis Hamilton (103) and Michael Schumacher (91). Vettel hardly says anything about it.

Not a word about what Charles Leclerc, his successor at Ferrari, is painfully aware of. That in the fight for the world championship hardly any mistakes are allowed in the cockpit, a team has to work almost perfectly and stand behind the chief pilot one hundred percent. Trust is key. Vettel lost that at Ferrari.

But there is another trust that accompanied him for a long time, but which has crumbled in recent years, quite apart from the conviction that he can still take every corner at the limit or still feel like attacking at full throttle. Did you see Vettel on the last corner of last Sunday’s French Grand Prix trying to pass team-mate Lance Stroll in the final meters? Or how he shot through the old town of Baku, missing the walls by a hair’s breadth. Still a racer, even in the average Aston Martin.

He still has that in him, but has long had something else in mind. A new way that is no longer compatible with Formula 1, especially with its sluggishness. You should listen to Vettel as he explains his retirement on his Instagram channel, which he set up on Thursday. With a look ahead, because looking back “makes you so slow”. A clear indication, on the one hand, not to indulge in nostalgia, to lament about past, old, successful times, i.e. about one’s successes. Vettel wants to do what he has always done: step on the gas, accelerate, move forward.

Symbolically, this is not possible with Aston Martin when circling for seventh place at best. To one day conquer the Formula 1 world with a team that started a good two years ago. Vettel also spoke about it at the time. But at the same time he was already on his way out of this traffic spectacle that forces all who mean business, who want to be a part of this entertainment, to constantly and intensively circle around themselves.

He carried the perception of the world outside the paddock and its problems inside. And he recited them. Louder and louder. He used what had made him a champion as a Formula 1 driver: stubbornly getting to the bottom of things, being able to formulate precise demands, being “annoying”.

In interviews with the FAZ, most recently together with the environmental activist Luisa Neubauer, he called on the Formula 1 management to help solve environmental problems with the engineer intelligence gathered in the paddock and to develop technical solutions. That’s not fast enough for him. “Being a Formula 1 driver brings things with it,” says Vettel in his farewell speech, “that I no longer like. Maybe these will be solved at some point, but the will to implement this change must become much stronger and lead to action today. We cannot afford to wait.”

Vettel does not leave Formula 1 under protest. On the contrary, it is melancholy at the end of a great love. You have grown apart. He took the offensive against the accusation of being hypocritical as a gas burner and garbage collector: “I can understand this point of view.” Breaks are part of life. Formula 1, its management annoyed by Vettel because of the environmental actions around the races, will get more peace at the end of the season. This is a loss.