Aston Martin has hired a performance engineer in Sebastian Vettel - Otmar Szafnauer

Aston Martin

Aston Martin has hired a performance engineer in Vettel - Szafnauer

Vettel is embarking on a new chapter of his F1 career with Aston Martin

Ian Parkes

Friday 5 February 2021 13:44

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Aston Martin team principal Otmar Szafnauer has likened Sebastian Vettel's desire for knowledge of his new car to that of a performance engineer whose role is to understand every nuance of that machinery.

Vettel is embarking on a new chapter in his Formula 1 career after six seasons with Ferrari where he fell short of his target of winning a fifth world title and ended it on a low note with his worst season in the sport.

That has led to questions as to whether the still has the hunger, speed and ability to continue at the top level of motorsport.

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Aston Martin has been prepared to give Vettel a chance to prove himself again after opting to dispense with Sergio Perez last year.

From what Szafnauer has seen so far, Vettel is every bit the driver that made him a four-time champion with Red Bull from 2010 to 2013.

"The way I look at it is at 33 years old you don't forget how to drive a Formula 1 racing car fast," said Szafnauer to Sky Sports F1.

"He definitely hasn't forgotten how to do that, and for sure the work ethic is still there. He's really, really hungry to perform.

"We've started working with him this year already and you can see it. He asked all the right questions and a lot of them. He's really hungry for knowledge.

"An engineer described Sebastian to me as [like] having a performance engineer behind the wheel. He wants to know as much, if not more, than the performance engineer you have working on the car, whose job it is to understand every little aspect of car performance. Seb wants to know that much - plus more.

"That's a good trait to have, he has that, he carried that with him to our team. We see it and he is really, really hungry, as he said, to have fun again in Formula 1."

But as to what fun means, Szafnauer added: "It means being competitive, it means working really hard and extracting every bit of performance out of a car, and achieving what the team can achieve and being a big part of that."

Szafnauer has further described Vettel as "highly motivated" and has no doubt he will develop "a great partnership" with new team-mate Lance Stroll.

Despite the 11-year age gap between the duo, and given their relative levels of experience, Szafnauer believes Stroll has an edge over Vettel in one respect.

"Seb is very experienced but not over the hill by any means at the age of 33," said Szafnauer. "Lance is much younger and on the learning curve but naturally very fast. So, I think that combination will suit us very well.

"The other thing is we've had a history of drivers working very closely together to extract the most we can out of the team and the car.

"Even in the days when Esteban [Ocon] and Sergio [Perez] would occasionally come together on track, behind the scenes they shared all their data, they worked together and they worked tirelessly to make sure that we got the best out of the car over a weekend.

"I can see that will continue with Sebastian and Lance, and I look forward to that.

"Lance can learn from Seb. Seb can learn from Lance as well because Lance is now the veteran here. He is the one who has driven last year's car, he knows the characteristics of it, more so than Seb does, so I look forward to that pairing."