Sebastian Vettel retired from Formula 1 at the end of the 2022 season. But that doesn’t mean that the four-time world champion has completely given up motorsport – on the contrary. It wasn’t until the weekend that Vettel was back in the Formula 1 car.
At the legendary Goodwood Festival of Speed, the German drove Ayrton Senna’s McLaren MP4/8 from the 1993 Formula 1 season around the track. The special feature: This bolide was again operated with sustainable fuel.
Vettel had already completed a demo drive in Nigel Mansell’s Williams FW14B with CO2-neutral petrol at Silverstone in 2022. “The main idea is to show that you can have fun, but in a more responsible way,” explains Vettel.
“The world is changing. That’s something that maybe not everyone has fully understood yet, but it’s happening and will happen more and more,” emphasizes Vettel and makes it clear: “I love motorsport and I want it to continue to exist.”
That’s exactly why he campaigns for more sustainability in motorsport with campaigns like “Race without Trace”. “It would be a shame if Goodwood as an event went away or if Formula 1 went away and I think that’s a threat,” he said.
Sustainable gasoline is “an alternative,” said Vettel, who admits: “It might not be the full answer, but I think it goes in that direction, and the idea, of course, is that you make fuels synthetically in a lab, rather than pumping oil out of the ground to make fuel.”
Vettel: Change in motorsport will be “inevitable”.
“A lot of people don’t know that there is such a thing and a lot of people don’t know that it’s probably inevitable for racing and for motorsport to switch, otherwise one day all these cars will disappear and that would be a shame,” Vettel said.
The longtime Formula 1 driver emphasizes that you cannot run away from the problem. “If you put things in perspective, what happens on the track and what happens in Formula 1 probably doesn’t matter at all,” he says.
Vettel clarifies: “Motorsport is really close to my heart. It has filled my life and I see many young children growing up with twinkles in their eyes and looking forward to racing, maybe a career in racing.”
“And it would be a shame if they didn’t get the same opportunities,” says Vettel, who emphasizes: “If you don’t look the other way, you can see that the climate crisis is already affecting many people in many places around the world.” And this is already having an impact on Formula 1.
He recalls: “Imola was [in diesem Jahr] cancelled. [Am Samstag] became the event [in Goodwood] cancelled. I think there is a direct correlation between extreme weather conditions and the changing world, the warming of the world.”
Vettel: Problems for Formula 1 are already “real”
“This year the race in Miami was in jeopardy because [die Stadt] flooded two or three weeks earlier and the track was under water. So it could have been canceled if it had happened three weeks later.”
“There were the wildfires in Canada,” he gives another example, explaining that if the situation had been worse, “Montreal would probably have been taken off the calendar.” The climate crisis is therefore “a real threat,” said Vettel.
“It could be that next year none of the races is threatened. But it doesn’t work that way. You just have to realize that the world is changing and that this is affecting our lives,” explains the four-time world champion.
“And it’s not so much a threat or a risk that people stick to the track on a race day or maybe at Goodwood. I think it’s more of a threat that at some point governments are looking for things that they can restrict and ban,” emphasizes Vettel.
“And maybe motorsport is under threat and could be one of those things. […] That’s as far as I think, and I don’t want that to happen,” Vettel explains his motives, because he wants motorsport to have a (sustainable) future.
Vettel between Goodwood and sailing competition
By the way: Both the Senna-McLaren and the Mansell-Williams come from Vettel’s private collection. When asked, he explains that a Formula 1 car belonging to his great idol, Michael Schumacher, is still missing.
“And 2004 stuck in my head as the most beautiful car he drove,” said Vettel, who would be “very, very happy” to someday be able to call a Ferrari F2004 his own. “But [diese Autos] are getting more and more expensive,” he laughs.
Vettel will be active again this weekend, but not on four wheels. His sailing team will start in Los Angeles on July 23rd and 24th. Vettel himself will be participating in training on the F50 catamaran for the first time.
“I’m happy to be on board with the team in LA and to fly over the water at up to 100 km/h. Before that I have to do special safety training so that I can move around on the boat and not just be ballast,” reveals Vettel.
“It will definitely be a new experience when the team is so directly around you and you don’t just communicate via radio,” said the German. Even after the Formula 1 career, Vettel’s world still revolves around racing and high speeds.