How Vettel put in the hard yards to exploit Red Bull’s F1 potential
Was Sebastian Vettel born a winner or did Red Bull make him one? And at what point did the cheeky young rascal who loved quoting Monty Python become a ruthless force willing to win at all costs – even if that meant disobeying team orders? MATT YOUSON has spoken to the people who have been with him since the start…
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.
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