Sebastian Vettel has lost a great ally at Aston Martin for the 2022 Formula 1 season: The racing team and team boss Otmar Szafnauer have gone their separate ways after twelve years. Szafnauer and Vettel have known each other for many years and the team boss was also one of the reasons that convinced the German to join Aston Martin.
The racing team has already found a successor in Mike Krack, and Vettel hopes that the change will go smoothly: “The team is growing, of course, and a change in management is always a small hiccup and takes time,” says the four-time world champion at the presentation of the AMR22.
Above all, Szafnauer will be missing as a person: “I’ve always liked Otmar and got along well with him. I think it’s difficult not to get along well with him,” he emphasizes. “He definitely had a very central role in the team. A lot of people knew him because he had been there for a long time. And of course that’s a big change.”
“But I’m looking ahead,” emphasizes Vettel. Because even with the new team boss Mike Krack, the 34-year-old has a past. When Vettel took his first steps in Formula 1 at BMW-Sauber, Krack was chief engineer. “Mike is great and I’m really looking forward to working with him,” he says.
“What I remember is that he had a very, very clear head at the time and worked in a very structured and organized manner,” he describes, praising above all his inner drive to win. “I think that can only do us good,” says Vettel. “And everyone who has worked with him speaks in similarly good terms about him.”
Vettel: Formula 1 season 2022 will be “a real test”
But the Aston Martin driver doesn’t really know how working with him will be: “It’s been a few years,” he says. “But I think he’s a great guy and has a great spirit. Hopefully he’ll be a strong addition to the team.”
Whether he can follow in Szafnauer’s footsteps remains to be seen. Under the leadership of the native Romanian, Force India/Racing Point was considered one of the most efficient teams in Formula 1, which did a lot with little. “But hopefully we can pull together despite the growth and become even more efficient,” says Vettel.
After a first year of transition in 2021, according to him, the upcoming season will be “a real test for us” and will show how good the team really is. He does not see the quite sobering year 2021 as representative, since Aston Martin was already focusing on the new car and hardly brought any updates. “And now we can show what we can do. And that’s what we should be judged on.”