. Reportedly, Ferrari was unwilling to give Vettel the two-year extension he was seeking. The consensus is that […] "'Pin It")
Sebastian Vettel Could Be Out of F1 After 2020
The Formula 1 driver market was blown wide open when Ferrari announced last week that Sebastian Vettel would leave the team at the end of the 2020 season (which has yet to start thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic).
Reportedly, Ferrari was unwilling to give Vettel the two-year extension he was seeking. The consensus is that both parties have lost faith in each other; Vettel in Ferrari’s ability to deliver a championship-winning car and in its willingness to support him, and Ferrari in Vettel’s ability to deliver results. Certainly, at some point in 2019 the Italian outfit seemed to have shifted its focus to his young teammate, Charles Leclerc.
With Ferrari behind him, it’s unclear where Vettel will go. At 32 years of age, it would be highly unusual for the four-time champion to retire, yet that seems more likely than any other scenario. Jenson Button, who retired at 37 with a single world championship to his name, said that Ferrari’s decision was “shocking” and that pushing out a driver of Vettel’s quality is “madness.”
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But two days after announcing Vettel will be out after 2020, Ferrari declared that Carlos Sainz Jr will be his replacement. Meanwhile, Daniel Ricciardo will replace Sainz at McLaren (leaving us to wonder if Renault really made the right decision in sacking Nico Hülkenberg).
This leaves an open spot at Renault for Vettel, but he likely has no interest in driving for a team that cannot build, at the very least, a race-winning car — and Renault has shown no signs of being capable of this (in fact, there are strong rumors that Renault is looking to leave the sport).
While Alexander Albon’s position at Red Bull is not locked in for 2021, team principal Christian Horner has made it categorically clear there is no room for Vettel to return to his former glory team, where Max Verstappen is now the top dog (the driver dynamic wouldn’t work with two “alphas,” per Horner’s words).
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The most interesting possibility for Vettel is Mercedes, where a major internal conflict is supposedly underway. Parent company Daimler is reportedly pushing hard to get Vettel into the team in 2021, and there’s even word that Liberty Media is putting its weight behind it. For commercial and PR reasons, it would be a major success. Who wouldn’t want to see Vettel and Lewis Hamilton, who together have won nine out of the last 10 driver titles, going at it head-to-head in the same machinery? It doesn’t hurt that Vettel, like Mercedes, is German.
However, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff is strongly against it — as is Hamilton. Both would prefer to see Valtteri Bottas continue with the team, as his strong results and clear status as a No. 2 driver better suit the team dynamic — and it’s one that has, after all, proven very successful. Mercedes junior driver George Russell has also been lined up for a Mercedes seat and he won’t soon want to relinquish it to Vettel.
For many, the idea of Vettel leaving the sport so soon is almost unfathomable. But Vettel himself has said that he would want to be remembered as a husband and father first and a racing driver second — and competing in F1 is famously tough on family. Perhaps, after some quarantine time with his wife and three children, the millionaire four-time champion might be wondering about the value of returning to the F1 circus.
Kurt Verlin was born in France and lives in the United States. Throughout his life he was always told French was the language of romance, but it was English he fell in love with. He likes cats, music, cars, 30 Rock, Formula 1, and pretending to be a race car driver in simulators; but most of all, he just likes to write about it all. See more articles by Kurt.