Vettel 'professional to the end' as Aston Martin reveal staggering dedication

Ewan Gale
Sunday 27 November 2022 12:00

Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack has revealed how Sebastian Vettel remained professional to the very end on his F1 farewell.

The German ended his career with a point at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, overcoming what he believed to be a poor strategy decision to chase home Daniel Ricciardo's McLaren.

But whilst there was a fanfare for the four-time world champion to fit the occasion, Krack has paid tribute to Vettel's professionalism as he attended the post-race engineering debrief with the team.

"He was a bit late because of all of his media duties but he went through his stints, precisely describing what the car did," explained Krack.

"Then there were words of thank you, and a glass to drink. What is he drinking? Jagermeister or something like that? It didn't smell very good.

"But he went through it. Many drivers would not have done it."

Krack impressed with how Vettel dealt with "distraction"

All 20 drivers convened for a farewell dinner for Vettel ahead of the race at Yas Marina, whilst there was a track run organised for after qualifying amongst other tributes for him across the weekend.

But conceding he 'didn't know' how Vettel coped with the occasion, Krack said: "If you look at how much distraction there was from the first moment, even from Brazil where already it was farewell, farewell, farewell.

"It just increased and increased all the time but each time he was in the car he was fully on it - I would say more than 100 per cent.

"In qualifying, it was the best example, in Q2 navigating his quickest lap around other cars.

"That was really, really impressive.

"How he managed to separate the high-class driving from the distraction of the farewell was really exemplary.

"I would not have expected that, to be honest."