“I will take care of him at the start and the first lap.”
Those were the words of Fernando Alonso, one of the toughest racing drivers in Formula 1 today, ahead of his rival Sebastian Vettel’s final start.
Alonso wasn’t alone either. Drivers and key personnel up and down the grid sent their good wishes to the four-times world champion on his retirement. The touching tributes from all in the paddock proved to show just how much he was respected as he prepared to leave the sport.
This wasn’t always the case during his career, however. The driver who left motorsport’s highest level as an inspiration to many was regarded as something of a ‘pantomime villain’ at times as his rapid rise to success, and sometimes ruthless pursuit of it, put a few noses out of joint.
Vettel’s record-breaking career saw him become the youngest driver to win a championship in 2010, aged just 23. That began a streak of consecutive wins lasting until 2013. He holds the record for the most pole positions in 2011 when he racked up 15 front-row starts and has the third-most wins in the sport.
In 2013 he was at the height of dominance, winning a record-breaking nine consecutive races, and a joint-record 13 in total. But as Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said on Sunday of his squad’s record-breaking season, “the higher you rise, the sharper the knives” – and Vettel had a number of clashes in his career.
The ‘Multi 21’ saga during the 2013 Malaysian Grand Prix was one such example. Vettel, racing alongside Mark Webber at Red Bull, disobeyed an order not to pass his team mate, much as Max Verstappen did in Brazil 2022 a matter of weeks ago.
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Vettel started the race on pole but Webber swept past him to take the lead early on. Holding off the two Mercedes, the pair were instructed not to fight. But Vettel had other ideas and made a decision that ruined what remained of his fractious relationship with his team mate. Ordered not to pass Webber with the coded command “multi 21”, Vettel took matters into his own hands and snatched the win. A furious Webber made it clear he was not happy by cutting up his team mate on track after the race had ended.
To begin with Vettel called it “not a victory I’m very proud of because it should have been Mark’s.” But his attitude soon hardened. A few days later in China, Vettel insisted Webber “didn’t…
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