Mark Webber claims the timing of Sebastian Vettel chose to make the decision and retire from Formula 1 might have a been a sneak sooner than ideal.
Sebastian Vettel finally called time on his illustrious F1 career after two unsuccessful seasons with Aston Martin that yielded only on podium in Baku in 2021, while another in Hungary of the same year was taken away from him after a fuel irregularity on his Aston Martin AMR21.
Some believe Vettel should’ve quit F1 right after Ferrari decided not to renew his contract in 2020, or even before that when things started going awry for the German at Maranello, but his former teammate at Red Bull, Mark Webber begs to differ.
Speaking to Speedcafe, Webber said of Vettel’s decision to retire: “He got the timing bang on, I think. Maybe a sneak early.
“I think he still drives very, very well. I told him, ‘I think that you got this a bit early’, so we’ve had a bit of a laugh about that.
“But I’m stoked he’s in one piece, he’s had a great career,” Webber added. “He was a juggernaut obviously in the early days and, on his day he could still do some special stuff. A four-time World Champion, not to be sneezed at, and he’ll be missed.”
Its takes time to nurture into a role
Vettel has changed a lot over his career, as in his Red Bull dominance days, he was all about winning and breaking records at any price, with friction between him and Webber at that time being a bit of a habit, with the Multi21 saga, where Vettel overtook the Australian at the 2013 Malaysian Grand Prix, disobeying his team by doing that.
However, the four-time F1 Champion has become more easy going later on in his career, even promoting various caused off track, something Webber believes is part of his former teammate’s maturing process, who became an F1 fans’ sweetheart after being regularly booed on podiums before.
Webber said: “Obviously, it takes time to to nurture into a role, with all the optics of your brand or whatever you stand for and all the rest of it.
“It takes time because that’s just the maturity factor of yourself as a professional athlete, and also how the fans embrace that attitude that you put towards your racing.
“Of course, at the start of his career, it wasn’t overly straightforward! Obviously, I shared a few podiums with him which were quite controversial, to say the least, all around the world,” he recalled. “But, at the end, I think that he’s been tremendous with reflection. He’s started to bring a lot to the sport, which might not have been the case early in his career.
“Results, yes, but in terms of as a World Champion, he certainly did a lot more at the end, which was brilliant. I take my hat off to that,” the winner of nine grands prix concluded.