Grand Prix Rejects

Feels like only yesterday since we saw this spotty teenager driving the wheels off a Toro Rosso. It's seemed inevitable for the last year or so, but even so it's still a shock.

Sad day today. Love Seb since he rocked up at Indy in a Sauber. A weird way for Toto to show-horn Nyck De Vries into a seat, but here we are. [removes tin foil hat] Seriously though, Seb can retire with his head high. 4 WDCs, comfortably better than Lance on even his worst days these past few seasons, and people are seeing now that the Ferrari struggles weren't all him afterall.

I won't disagree that he was very much Ferrari'd overall, but he did his own chances a lot of damage in 2018. That was a winnable WDC for him.

Still, I'm sad to see him go.

Londoner wrote: ↑28 Jul 2022, 10:19Feels like only yesterday since we saw this spotty teenager driving the wheels off a Toro Rosso. It's seemed inevitable for the last year or so, but even so it's still a shock.

I don't know if it is maybe just me, but I'm not that surprised that he is retiring from the sport now. I might be mistaken, but I have a recollection that, even back in his Red Bull days, he'd talked about the idea of retiring in his mid 30s because he was hoping that it would then give him an opportunity to spend more time with his family.

When he left Ferrari, he does seem to have considered the option of retiring then, rather than going to Aston Martin, and there were a few comments he'd made back in 2021 that seemed to hint that he was considering the option of retiring from the sport. Added to that, he has also talked about how he's not particularly keen on the calendar continuing to expand because of how much it is taking out of his personal life - and with Liberty Media continuing to want to push the current calendar up to at least 24 races a season, Vettel was probably expecting that to only get worse with time.

I also wonder if, to some extent, he's reached the point where he's become a bit frustrated at the sport too. The incident earlier this year, where he walked out of a drivers briefing after arguing about the inconsistent application of the rules, was a bit out of character for him and perhaps speaks about greater frustrations with the sport.

Similarly, when Sulayem took a swipe at some of the drivers for being a bit too outspoken, Vettel was one of the drivers that he took a swipe at - I can imagine that he might also not be entirely happy about the way that Sulayem is taking the FIA, and perhaps might also be uncomfortable that the direction the sport is taking doesn't fit in with his activism outside of the sport.

The F1 World will be a duller place without Seb.

I was quite sad to read Seb was retiring as I'd grown to like the Vettel of the last few years. It seems like with the pressure off he became a much more likeable character to me at least.

Oh jeez, does that mean I'm going to quite like Max Verstappen in about 15 years time? Say it ain't so...

Great result from Seb today at Suzuka!