Has Formula 1 forgiven Vettel?

Sebastian Vettel could have done a star turn in British theatres this Christmas period as Formula 1's best Pantomime Villain.

After a year of supreme brilliance behind the wheel - with so little to fault - it became in vogue this season to talk down the four-time champion.

It was an easy stance to adopt.

Here was the man who had done the dirty on team-mate Mark Webber in Malaysia and ignored team orders to steal that win.

Here was the man that fans just loved to hate each time he stood on top of the podium, so much so that he regularly faced a barrage of boos.

Here was the man who single-handedly turned F1 into a one-man bore-a-thon as he delivered a record-breaking nine consecutive victories to round off his title campaign in style.

Here too was the man who had not given a single thought to pulling aside at Webber's final race and handing the Australian the perfect sign-off.

But to view Vettel as a negative force on the sport, and label 2013 as anything but a huge positive for the German, would be a mistake.

For this was a season when F1 learned more about the real Sebastian Vettel than we have ever done before.

Opening up before us in the wake of Multi 21, challenged to dig deep and stave off the early-season Mercedes surge, and needing to reflect on who he was amid the podium taunts, it was a year when Vettel upped his game and proved to the world just how sensational he is.

Vettel's dominance was overwhelming in 2013 © LAT

As Vettel told AUTOSPORT earlier this month: "People tend to say, looking at the scoreboard and the points that we scored, that it was easy. But you forget the steps that we took.

"It was a difficult season for me especially. A difficult start, especially on the political side, which is never nice to deal with.

"It was difficult also to deal with booing, even though you've done nothing wrong. For all of us, for the whole team and myself, it just made us mature and to step on to another level."

It was the events of Malaysia that proved decisive in framing the image of Vettel as the bad boy.

His decision to defy his pitwall was wrong, and played its part in the subsequent booing later in the campaign.

But however much he tarnished himself that afternoon at Sepang, he did much to redeem himself the following month at Shanghai when he explained his actions.

Confronted by the world's media, Vettel did not shy away from explaining why he had done it.

The tensions that had existed behind the scenes with team-mate Webber were laid bare for all to see, and we learned a great deal in those 40 minutes about the passion and thirst for victory that drive the remarkable German on.

From that moment on, Vettel's season became the epitome of near perfection. And as he reeled off win after win, leaving Webber in his wake, he did much to repair the damage that had been done by Multi 21.

He was an unstoppable force that did not accept being held back, and he deserved no resentment because of that. What is he supposed to do - try not to win?

If there is one element to Vettel that perhaps limits him it is that the world only rarely gets to see what the real man is like. It has what has made him a Pantomime Villain rather than a real one.

The limited snapshots on display at grand prix weekends, in heavily formal and often stilted press conferences, do no justice to the tremendous personality Vettel has.

He is also tarnished by the perception of being the entitled one at Red Bull - with Helmut Marko's rigorous defence of anything he does, allied to Adrian Newey's brilliant cars, making it too easy to suggest wins and success are handed to him on a plate.

Fans prefer the underdog, the driver who has battled against the odds and triumphed in a heroic way, something that for some reason Vettel is never given the credit for.

And that does a disservice to his brilliance, for things are not as cosy as the image suggests.

Vettel showed his charm during the AUTOSPORT Awards © LAT

That is why it was fascinating to hear from Vettel on stage at the AUTOSPORT Awards - a now regular appearance where those present see what the real man is like - how things are not always so rosy with Marko.

"I got a big wake-up call in Hungary," said Vettel, referring to the last race where anyone other than him won.

"I thought I did a decent job on the Saturday. Pole was a very, very close fight with Lewis - I think there was only a few hundredths difference.

"I was happy with my lap in my final attempt in Q3 but I knew pole was for grasp, so I was not entirely happy. I got to my room, got changed and when I was in my underpants Helmut Marko opened the door, and he said: 'You fucked that one right up!'

"I asked him what he meant.

"He replied: 'Turn 5, I saw it. If you only copied the lap from Q2 in Turn 5 you would have pole.'

"What most people don't see is that this year has been a tricky year in some respects. People always think that Helmut and I are like best mates. But actually the example I am giving you is that he was never shy of giving me shit and probably never will be.

"So he gave me a massive bollocking for fucking it up. I said on Turn 5 he had a point, as he had spoken to the engineers so was well informed. But it wasn't an awful lap. He said, 'Yeah but you should still have got pole.'

"Next day, we finished third which I think was a good recovery for the race we had, getting stuck in traffic and so on. But he said, 'You see, yesterday you get pole you win the race; you didn't get pole, you fucked it up; and today you saw you had a shit race!' I said, 'Thanks for the summary!'"

The real Vettel who can laugh at himself, who can entertain, who is unhappy when he is not on top, who has his bust-ups with Red Bull bosses, who has his faults and makes mistakes but has the ability to learn from his errors is there right in front of us.

It is just it has become lost amid the dominance of this Vettel era in F1. As unfair as it sounds, people don't like a regular winner.

Perhaps only when the success stops, when Vettel has to deal with defeat and plot a path of recovery, will the outside world come to understand and appreciate him fully.

In true Pantomime sense, only when 'he is behind you' will the world get to realise who the real Sebastian Vettel is. And they will certainly then love him for it.