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Four-time F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel announced his retirement on social media yesterday. There won't be a dry eye in the paddock at the 2022 F1 Abu Dhabi GP when the Alpine driver finishes the last race of his career. The German is universally loved by both paddock members and fans these days. However, this was not always the case.
Sebastian Vettel was booed at most races in a couple of seasons, and was arguably the most hated driver in the sport. Yet, here he is today, beloved by everyone and leaving all of them wanting more from him.
So, how did this happen? How did Vettel go from being the most hated driver on the grid to one of the most beloved ones? Keep reading to find out the exact timeline of this transformation.
2010: The arrival of the "crash kid" and the hate
It was the 2010 F1 season and we had as many as four world champions on the F1 grid, including Michael Schumacher, Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton, and Fernando Alonso. The championship was expected to be close, as teams like McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull, and Mercedes were not too far away from each other in terms of speed.
Even with four potential title-contending teams and four world champions being on the grid, an energy drink company was drawing the most attention to itself after it hired a young German driver that went by the name of Sebastian Vettel. He was about two years younger than the youngest world champion on the grid, Lewis Hamilton, and was turning heads left, right, and center with his scintillating speed.
While his speed was promising, the young driver was still raw and made many mistakes. His first mistake was against his teammate when he tangled with Mark Webber in Turkey. However, it was his second crash with Jenson Button at Spa that made a many people furious.
One of them was McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh, who termed Sebastian Vettel a "crash kid" who needed to be raced against carefully. By this time, most of the top drivers on the grid had turned their backs on the rash German rookie who crashed a lot while driving fast cars.
2013: the Multi-21 meltdown and peak of hate against Sebastian Vettel
By the 2013 F1 season, Sebastian Vettel had managed to leave behind the "crash kid" tag and was now a three-time world champion. It would be an understatement to say that the Red Bull driver was dominating the grid with his driving skills in the Red Bull. He had been on most podiums for the last two years and, more often than not, on the top step of those podiums. Inherent frustration was developing against Vettel as the superstars of the sport Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso were left as bystanders while Vettel romped home to multiple title wins.
At the 2013 F1 Malaysian GP, Red Bull was running 1-2 in a rain-affected race. Mark Webber was leading the race after jumping Sebastian Vettel in the pit stops. The team called off the race between the two drivers once Sebastian Vettel caught up to Webber and issued the "Multi-21" order, meaning that Webber would stay ahead of Vettel. The latter, to everyone's shock, blatantly disobeyed the orders and attacked Mark Webber for the lead to take the win.
After all the drama had settled down, Vettel pointed to Webber almost costing him the championship in the 2012 F1 season finale by closing the door on him at the start of the race. Vettel did not want to give the Australian any favors or play the team game after that. Despite Vettel putting his point across, the fans had already turned and what followed was a sequence of more than 10 races where the German was booed on the podium by the fans.
2015: Sebastian Vettel moves to Ferrari and becomes the underdog
Fans began changing their perception of Vettel when he joined Ferrari in the 2015 F1 season. The German was no longer in the best car on the grid, instead he was the driver who was trying to challenge the mighty Mercedes while driving a Ferrari that was evidently slower.
Sebastian Vettel received rousing applause from F1 fans when he won the 2015 F1 Malaysian GP, beating both the Mercedes cars. The same thing happened to him in consequent race wins in Hungary and in Singapore later that season.
From this point onwards, as Mercedes' dominance grew in the sport, fans who had previously disliked Vettel started slowly liking him again. Gone was the "Multi-21" Seb. Now, he was the funny Seb in the press conferences where he took the mickey out of the Mercedes drivers that were fighting an intense battle at the front of the grid.
2020: The German garners fans' sympathy in last season with Ferrari
Arguably the most heartbreaking season in Sebastian Vettel's career was the 2020 season. Even before the season had begun, Ferrari announced that the German and the team had decided not to take their relationship beyond the season. We later found out that it was far from a mutual decision and that there had not even been contract talks in the first place with Vettel.
To make matters worse, the Scuderia had produced its worst car in recent history, which saw the four-time world champion struggle massively. It also became evident that the team had decided to put all its eggs in the Leclerc basket. While it was no surprise that the relationship soured over the course of the 2020 season, what surprised most was just how bad the relationship between the team and the driver got. Publicly. So much so that when Vettel scored his best finish of the season in Turkey, a P3, he joked that it was probably because team principal Mattia Binotto was not present.
During all of this, the sympathy of the fans leaned even more towards the driver as the German driver often had to make his own race strategies while driving at 150mph.
2021 - present: Activist Sebastian Vettel wins the fans over
After Vettel's move from Ferrari to Aston Martin, he started pursuing interests outside the sport. He has been vocal about social as well as climate issues in the past few years. Sebastian Vettel started taking more and more interest in the future of the planet and every time he spoke, he spoke with such clarity on the subject that it was impressive to watch.
In between all of this, he has notched up a couple of impressive podiums as well for Aston Martin and has been performing at a good level. The German continued that trend this year and even appeared on the British political talk show Question Time. Through all of this, after a bout of hating him for winning too many races, fans saw the real side of Sebastian Vettel and everybody was enamored by it.
In the end, the same young German that was booed off the podium for more than 10 races in a single season, has announced his retirement and made everyone sad that he will be leaving the grid at the end of the season.
