How Vettel put in the hard yards to exploit Red Bull’s F1 potential

 There are few, if any, forms of praise higher than the accolade of ‘natural talent’. In the sporting arena it serves as the shorthand for greatness: a skillset seemingly encoded in DNA; physical attributes and mental acuity conferred by random chance or simple genetics.

Max Verstappen is a natural talent, so too Lewis Hamilton. Go back through Formula 1 history and other names inevitably draw the appellation: Ayrton Senna; Gilles Villeneuve; Jim Clark. But there are others given that honorific rarely, if at all: Jackie Stewart; Alain Prost; Michael Schumacher. While they undoubtedly had natural talents, their descriptors tend to focus on other factors: hard work and application; people skills; shrewdness bordering on ingenuity.

Where does Sebastian Vettel fit into this picture? 

That he occupies a high seat in the grand prix pantheon is not in doubt. Right now, his record is being chiselled into the bedrock of F1 history. 300 races, 53 victories, 57 poles, four times a world champion. Still the youngest driver to win the world championship, one of the rare breed to win grands prix for three different teams – but how to classify him is more troubling: master craftsman or natural born racer?

PLUS: Where Vettel stands in the list of the greatest F1 drivers

A dozen years ago, coming into his pomp at Red Bull, Vettel was natural talent all the way: a teenage prodigy ripping up the record books, giggling while pretending to conduct an orchestra from the podium, tweaking the nose of his elders and making it all look effortless. But fast forward a decade, put some more miles on the clock and different stories emerge: the work ethic; the meticulous preparation, the interminable debriefs. Which is the more accurate representation?

Vettel’s junior career was suitably stellar: German and European Junior karting champion, Formula BMW ADAC champion and then second in the F3 Euro Series. After this, things became a bit fragmented: a few races here and there in Formula Renault 3.5 but no full campaign, and no assault on the shiny new GP2 Series.

Seidl says Vettel's work ethic was evident from the start of his F1 career with BMW Sauber as third driver in 2006

Photo by: Andre Vor / Sutton Images

A good record and excellent timing granted young Vettel an early promotion into F1 with BMW-Sauber, making his free practice debut at the Turkish Grand Prix in 2006, briefly occupying Robert Kubica’s car. A full F1 debut followed in the 2007 US Grand Prix when Kubica was instructed to sit it out by the FIA’s medical team, following a lulu of a crash at the Canadian Grand Prix a few days earlier. In his first race, as in his last, Vettel battled his way to a point.

Why Vettel had to learn the hard way

Andreas Seidl was BMW-Sauber’s head of trackside operations during that period. The recently-departed McLaren team principal, bound for a return to Sauber, is unequivocal that Vettel’s work ethic was already well-defined during his earliest F1 foray.

“He was obviously very talented in terms of speed,” recalls Seidl, “but also unbelievably committed in terms of working, commitment, effort, going the extra mile every day, pushing the team. Unbelievably determined also: being clear of where this needs to end up, becoming the best in this sport – but he was a lot of fun too. The combination was very motivational for the people in the team.”

"Like every young driver, he wouldn’t really know where that inconsistency came from. The thing which helped us help him was the honesty of his feedback. He’d be very open about explaining what went wrong, where he was struggling" Riccardo Adami

That Vettel’s record with BMW-Sauber is a one-race curio comes down to timing and circumstance. Red Bull had a claim on his services and could offer a seat (still warm from the ejected backside of the recently surplus-to-requirements Scott Speed), BMW had the former but not the latter. 

“We were a team on the up with two drivers – Robert and Nick [Heidfeld] who did a good job, and therefore I think it was understandable that [team principal] Mario Theissen made the decision at the time that he wanted to keep going with this line-up,” says Seidl. “It was just unlucky in terms of timing, where we were with the project, where we were with Robert and Nick, that we didn’t have an opening. And with Seb getting the chance of race seat, there was no chance to keep him.”

Vettel’s career at Toro Rosso covered 25 races and more ups and downs than his commute from Hinwil to Faenza. He’s best remembered for the triumphant, untroubled victory from pole position at Monza in atrocious conditions, but there’s other stuff in there too: torpedoing Mark Webber behind the safety car when both were running in podium contention at Fuji, and a string of four DNFs at the start of 2008, three of them early race collisions. Young Vettel was quick… but raw.

The latter incidents – and others – had Vettel on the receiving end of some blunt words from famously frank technical director Giorgio Ascanelli. The imposing Italian who had worked with Nelson Piquet, Ayrton Senna, Gerhard Berger and Michael Schumacher wasn’t one to mince his words – but Vettel didn’t object to a bit of tough love.

Vettel, pictured here tangling with Alonso at Fuji in 2007, was involved in plenty of incidents in his early career as he learned the ropes

Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images

“He liked it,” says Riccardo Adami, currently race engineer for Carlos Sainz but previously race engineer for both young Vettel at Toro Rosso and then the four-time-champion at Ferrari. “He liked that strong approach. Ascanelli was very tough with him – but that was instructive. Having someone to guide you through what’s right and what’s wrong, is positive.

“So he had a tough start to the 2008 season, but when we had a new car from Monaco onwards he had a much better feeling, and could prove what he was capable of.”

Finding confidence – and consistency

Vettel’s weaknesses during his tenure at Toro Rosso were the usual faults suffered by callow youth.

“You could see the capability, but he couldn’t always put the puzzle together,” recalls Adami. “You’d see good performance one day, bad performance the next – and, like every young driver, he wouldn’t really know where that inconsistency came from. The thing which helped us help him was the honesty of his feedback. He’d be very open about explaining what went wrong, where he was struggling.”

This is an easy thing to say, more difficult to do. The path to an F1 seat might generously be described as cut-throat. It doesn’t encourage introspection, nor admission of personal fallibility. It takes a character very confident in their own ability to acknowledge doubts or discuss mistakes.

Vettel’s advantage was being in a team with the training wheels very much still attached. While Red Bull can be ruthless, there’s also a tacit understanding that, so far as drivers are concerned, development rather than results is the purpose of the Toro Rosso/AlphaTauri second string. And while technical director Ascanelli might have been giving Vettel the hairdryer treatment, team principal Franz Tost was less concerned about the flying shards of carbon composite.

“For me, it’s clear a young driver needs this crash period,” says Tost. “There are unwritten rules. Principles, if you like. First, a driver needs around three years to understand Formula 1. It’s not just about learning the tracks. This is the peak of motorsport and it’s complex, though people on the outside rarely understand this. They look at a guy sitting in a cockpit and think, ‘What’s so difficult? Select a gear and go for it.’ It isn’t like that.

Vettel bounced back from four DNFs with a strong run to fifth at Monaco in 2008 before his breakthrough win at Monza

Photo by: James Moy

“If the driver wants to be fast – and they all want to be fast – he has to take risks and find the limit. If he doesn’t crash, he’ll never know; if he crashes, then he knows where the limit is and that he’s gone over it. After that, it depends on how clever the driver is, and how much he learns from the experience.

“It’s if he really studies the onboards from everyone, looks at how guys like Alonso find a hole in those few hundredths of a second and don’t crash, where the successful drivers in the midfield brake. What was decisive for me about Sebastian was that he got better at it race after race.”

"He wasn’t the top driver, didn’t have the experience, but Red Bull wasn’t there either. He and the team went through the learning process together" Franz Tost

Vettel didn’t get the Red Bull-standard three years with Toro Rosso. David Coulthard’s retirement in 2008 opened up a seat at Red Bull, and Vettel got the nod over the summer, shortly before his Monza spectacular.

Monza 2008: How Vettel and Toro Rosso pulled off their fairytale F1 win

It wasn’t a huge amount of experience with which to be heading into a top team – but Red Bull wasn’t a top team in 2008. This, says Tost, worked to Vettel’s advantage.

“They were a good team in 2008 and right on the edge of becoming a top team – but they weren’t there yet, and it was just the right time because Seb was in the same position,” says Tost. “He wasn’t the top driver, didn’t have the experience, but Red Bull wasn’t there either. He and the team went through the learning process together.”

The crucial influence of David Coulthard

It took Vettel three races to bring Red Bull its first pole position and first victory in 2009. The RB5 was a gem of a car and, while spirited debate over what does and does not constitute a diffuser hole or slot denied it and Vettel a real shot at the title in 2009, once Adrian Newey and his acolytes had shoehorned in a double-diffuser it spent the latter two-thirds of the year as the class of the field. Vettel added victories at Silverstone, Suzuka and Yas Marina to his win in Shanghai, finishing a strong second in the title race – but to those within the team, he was still getting to grips with F1.

Vettel inherited race engineer Guillaume Rocquelin from the departing Coulthard, and ‘Rocky’ recalls the transition from the experienced Scot to the 21-year-old German introduced a very different dynamic to the garage.

Working with Vettel meant some big changes for race engineer Guillaume Rocquelin after Coulthard's retirement

Photo by: Andre Vor / Sutton Images

“David had 14 years in F1, he knew it inside-out, knew how it functioned,” recalls Rocquelin. “He was very specific on what he wanted, both in and out of the car, so the job engineering David was making sure he got what he wanted. With Sebastian, it was much more open-ended: he wasn’t sure what would suit his style, didn’t really know what would be best in terms of set-up, driver interface, things like that.

“But this was only half the challenge. Remember he was very young when he joined us, there were lots of things in F1 that were still new to him, even tasks like interaction with the media or with the FIA. With David those were never an issue but with Sebastian, I had to take more a role beyond the nuts-and-bolts of running the car.”

There is a very strong argument that inheriting a settled engineering set-up and garage crew from Coulthard was a significant factor in shaping the final form that Vettel-the-driver became. Ole Schack was Vettel’s front-end mechanic – a job he does now on Max Verstappen’s car, and has done for the Milton Keynes team since the days of Jaguar Racing. He recalls much of the routine simply transferred across to the new boy.

“David set us going on how we should perform, on how crucial it is that the driver finds all of us to be in communication with him about every little thing from seatbelts to throttles, and that was our way of working when Seb arrived, which he took onboard,” says Schack. “From my point of view, he was always very relaxed and easy to work with. Right from the start, when he came in for the winter tests, he explained what he wanted, the design team made it, and not much changed over the next six seasons.”

Speak to any of Vettel’s mechanics down the years and there’s a danger of a story degenerating into hagiography. He is very, very popular. It might manifest itself in public ways – after winning his fourth title at the 2013 Indian Grand Prix, Vettel pulled on a high-vis and baling gloves for pack down, an extra pair of hands so that the crew might get out of the track and down to some serious celebrating earlier – but he’s also a prolific communicator (“He still sends me a Christmas card – what the fuck is that all about?” says Daniel Ricciardo).

When Vettel announced his retirement, he outlined his reasons to Schack in a hand-written letter. The pair were, and are, very tight. Things like this are simply in Vettel’s character – but undoubtedly, they contribute to building a successful environment. In his case, this was perhaps not the product of random chance.

Schumacher’s hidden hand

“I would say that Seb’s relationship with Michael Schumacher has probably been key to developing the driver that we have now,” says Red Bull sporting director Jonathan Wheatley. “He was a youngster when he joined us – and it’s a long time ago now – but he still feels like family. It’s a standout feature of the all-time greats, that ability to knit a team around them.

Wheatley recognises in Vettel a knack for getting the best out of the team around him

Photo by: Motorsport Images

“Michael definitely had that ability at Benetton. Seb is probably the best I’ve ever seen. Even now, when we won the drivers’ title in Suzuka, the first text message of congratulation I received was from Seb. That meant a huge amount.”

Wheatley decided Vettel had something special at another Japanese Grand Prix – albeit in rather less complimentary circumstances.

“Obviously there was always some interaction between Red Bull and Toro Rosso when it came to the drivers, so I’d had quite a few conversations with Seb – including one after his clash with Webber in Fuji,” he recalls. “That was interesting, because it’s when you realise he isn’t a pushover.

"He really, really wanted to understand the details, understand everything that went on. But because of that, he was really comfortable in the team. He knew his environment, knew what the team were doing" Jonathan Wheatley

“We were having a fairly frank conversation after the race and he came back at me. He’s a young lad and you’re yanking his tail but he could stand up for himself, look you in the eye, and give some of it back. I thought that was a pretty good sign.”

Wheatley’s three decades in F1 have encompassed more than his fair share of the all-time greats, from his years as a mechanic in Michael Schumacher’s Benetton team, chief mechanic with Renault in Fernando Alonso’s pomp and then team manager/sporting director for Red Bull since 2006, taking in the Vettel and Verstappen eras.

“Each one of those drivers has the ability to pull a lap out of nowhere,” he says. “All of them can consistently deliver in a car, even a car that’s underperforming, and somehow get a result that contributes towards a championship. They all do that in a different way, they’re very different people and have different motivations – but they all do it.”

What, then, makes Vettel stand out on that particular list? Wheatley gives this some real consideration.

“Debriefs were longer with Seb – painfully so at times, because he really, really wanted to understand the details, understand everything that went on. But because of that, he was really comfortable in the team. He knew his environment, knew what the team were doing. He was a professional in a professional world – and got a buzz from that.

Wheatley praises Vettel's ability to pull a lap out of seemingly nowhere when it was needed - a trait he shared with Schumacher, Alonso and Verstappen

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images

“He would – does – talk to everybody because he wants to understand everything. You think about the key people he spent time with: learning about race engineering from Rocky; learning about the car with Paul Monaghan [chief engineer – car engineering]; hopefully learning about the sporting side of the regs, and people management, with me. It’s all part of it.”

Ruthless – but still loved

Courtesy and human nature demand nice words are said about the person retiring, but the warmth with which Vettel’s former associates speak of him goes far beyond politeness. Everyone has an anecdote about a recent chat or meal with Vettel; pointedly, no one voluntarily discusses the moments in which he blotted the copybook.

Wheatley, at least, recognises the discomfort caused by Vettel’s decision in the 2013 Malaysian Grand Prix to ignore team orders and snatch a victory that belonged to Mark Webber – but ascribes it to another trait common among champions. “That’s your ruthlessness, showing through, isn’t it?”

Another aspect of ruthlessness surfaced a year after the Multi-21 fiasco in Malaysia, when Vettel decided to abandon Red Bull and its anaemic first-effort Renault hybrid power unit, favouring the sunlit uplands of Maranello. Knowing when to cut and run has always been the hallmark of F1’s most successful drivers – though some people will ascribe motives more noble. 

“It’s another chapter in the book,” says Schack. “I got the feeling he saw what Schumacher did and wanted to emulate him, because he and Michael are very close. He came pretty close to winning another title with Ferrari – and it would have been different: everyone would have said: “It’s not just the Red Bull car.”

And that’s the story of Sebastian Vettel: The Wonder Years. A hard worker, prepared to put in the hours to learn, easy to get along with and inspiring great loyalty from those around him, but also prepared to get his elbows out should the need arise. A driver in the right teams at the right times – but also one capable of understanding the opportunity was there to be seized.

And, of course, a natural talent. Because the notion of this being an either/or question is false. Natural talent is the price of entry. How far it takes a driver depends on how much work they’re willing to do – and Vettel was willing to do a lot.

Vettel's hard work was rewarded with four consecutive titles between 2010 and 2013

Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images