Mike Krack says he wants Sebastian Vettel to “talk to the team more” before protests

Mike Krack has said he wants Sebastian Vettel to talk to the Aston Martin team “even more” before he protests against ongoing issues in the world.

In recent years, Vettel has become one of the sport’s biggest campaigners for issues he believes in, whether that is environmental concerns or equal rights. Throughout the season, he has worn special helmets at different races to bring attention to an issue occurring in that country at the time.

A recent example came at the Canadian Grand Prix, where he wore a helmet denouncing oil sands mining in the country, but was criticised for having the sponsorship of an oil company, Aramco, above the message.

Vettel himself has said he “doesn’t care” about any backlash he receives and that these topics are bigger than the interests of Formula 1. The German did not wear the helmet during the grand prix but his team, Aston Martin, denied they had forced him to not wear it.

Now, team boss Krack has said while he does not think it is fair the four-time former World Champion is criticised for expressing his opinion, he said he wants to see Vettel work closer with and talk more to the team.

“Everyone has their opinion on that (Vettel’s comments) – I think you can’t muzzle top athletes who are also intelligent,” the Luxembourgish told SPORT1.  “Sebastian is criticised for his commitment but that’s not fair. What happened in Canada was the best example of that.

“What I would like to see as a team representative, however, is that Sebastian works even more closely with us in his actions and talks to us even more in the run-up to his actions. Together we can achieve more.

“For example, Sebastian asked why transport from the airport to the company and vice versa cannot be done with purely electric cars. Now we’ve started doing that because it makes sense.”

It has been quite the baptism of fire for Krack, who joined the team at the start of the year and he has admitted to being surprised at the way even small details are reported in the media.

“I admit I was surprised by the small details reported in Formula 1,” the 50-year-old said. “And how media are often used to make politics.

“One example – in Spielberg (for the Austrian Grand Prix) we all voted that our previously set minimum budget be increased by four million euros because of increased costs due to the pandemic and the Ukraine war.

“And yet a team boss ran to the media immediately afterwards and lamented the increase…