Sebastian Vettel is ready to move on from the disappointment of last season now that he has joined the rebranded Aston Martin team for 2021.
Vettel finished 13th out of 20 drivers in last year’s championship standings, scoring at third of the points of his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc.
It was the four-time champion’s last season with Ferrari before joining Aston Martin this year, but Vettel said he no longer has any regrets about how his time at the Italian team came to an end.
« The whole year was a challenge, » he said at the launch of the new Aston Martin AMR21. « I’ve obviously thought about it a lot last year, during the season, and I’m obviously not happy with how last year went in terms of performance, partly my performance, but yeah I think I accepted in terms of I’ve been living through it.
« I don’t have any regrets, obviously there are things that didn’t go well and things I would have liked to go better, and differently and so on, but ultimately I’m very much looking forward to this year. I’m very much at peace with last year.
« I know that it hasn’t been to my standards that I mostly hold myself, I’ve never really cared what people say or think or write, but that’s why I think it’s important I’m at peace with that myself, and very much looking forward to this year, and having very, very high expectations myself. »
Vettel’s lack of performance was often linked to the characteristics of last year’s Ferrari, in particular a lack of stability at the rear, but he said his preference for certain car characteristics over others had been overplayed.
« Every car behaves like it behaves, » he said. « Of course you have certain preferences but I think if you are in charge and happy and with everything that’s going on around you, I think you are very quickly on top of the car and you do what needs to be done, try to find the edge some way or another, you adapt and so on.
« I’m looking forward to getting in the car, be myself, be happy, and have a good time, and if that’s the case the results will follow, whatever that means.
« I think the whole rear end thing has got a little bit out of hand. I mean, if you look at the cars that I had when I was at Red Bull or beginning of Ferrari I think there’s always been times when the rear has been nervous and that’s OK, so I don’t think I’m more vulnerable than others in this regard.
« If anything I don’t like when the car is really just understeering, because at least with oversteer you can do plenty of things. The understeer as well there are driver techniques but your hands are a bit more tied and you’re a bit more limited. So actually I prefer when the car is a bit loose at the rear, it helps it to rotate and so on — although obvious if it gets too much then you lose too much time and then nobody likes that because it’s slow.
« But coming back on the philosophy [of the Aston Martin], I think it is interesting. Obviously I didn’t have a single lap yet but maybe we’ll get a glance tomorrow [during a shakedown at Silverstone], but then really in Bahrain with consistent conditions to get a feel of it.
« By the sounds of it it’s very different, I hope it’s coming my way if there is something like that, and then we’ll see how it goes. »
https://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/30996667/vettel-peace-poor-performance-ferrari-2020
