december-2012

everyone else. It has become all
very unpredictable… But yes,
consistency remains the key to
winning both championships
[drivers’ and constructors].’
Vettel is happy to be back in
the game after his holiday and
even more delighted to be at Spa,
a track where he has tasted
success in the past. ‘This circuit
is defi ned by the surrounding
nature. I love it! I was happy to
have won here last year. The
diff erence in altitude and the
unpredictable weather really
make it a big challenge. It’s one
that every racing driver loves to
compete on. It’s good to be back
after the summer break,’ says the
champion, who took time out
from his holiday to shoot a
special photograph in aid of
London’s Great Ormond Street
Hospital for Children.
His photo, called The Red
Wall Mountain, is part of the
Zoom Charity project. The print
of the photograph taken in
Vorarlberg in Austria, where he
and his family used to go skiing
during the school holidays, will
be auctioned. ‘It’s an awesome
view! I know the area really well.
I love to go to the region on
holiday and it really is a home
away from home.’
Photography is not his only
off -track passion. He is also a
keen designer and spends hours
working on new designs for his
crash helmets. The talk in the
paddock is that he only ‘retires’
a helmet design after he has
won a race with it, but Vettel
says that’s not entirely true. He
has too much fun
experimenting with new
designs that he makes changes
whenever he fi nds time. Some
of his helmets have become
collector’s items. Veteran
Brazilian F1 racer Rubens
Barrichello, who boasts one of
the largest helmet collections,
recently Tweeted: ‘Great
surprise when I received a
72—GW
B R U S S E L S
Vettel im Sommer 2012 beim Training auf
der Grand-Prix-Rennstrecke in Spa
Vettel during practice at the Spa
Grand Prix Circuit in summer 2012
‘I think the pressure is always
there to deliver good results and to
win races and championships’
helmet that was missing in my
collection. Thanks Vettel.’
Vetttel’s design skills are not
confi ned to crash helmets. His
artistic fl air came in handy when
he was asked by Red Bull’s
Japanese motor manufacturing
partner Infi niti to redesign their
sport utility vehicle (SUV), the
Infi niti FX50. In the process he
became the only F1 driver to
design a road car. A limited 150
of the Infi niti FX Vettel Version
went on sale in Europe, the
Middle East and America at the
end of 2012. ‘It was exciting
because it’s not every day that
you get to design a road car. For
me it was important that the car
had a sporty look and feel, which
was inspired by my day job
driving an F1 car. I worked
closely with the exterior and
interior designers. It’s an
interesting process to sit down
and discuss in detail what you
could achieve and a great
pleasure to see the end result.’
But how happy is he with the
end product? ‘My version is
lighter, more aero-effi cient and
more powerful than the original
FX,’ says the man who these days
can aff ord to buy almost any car
he desires but prefers to drive his
own creation.
In a sport where money
matters more than any other,
Vettel did not, like so many
other F1 drivers, ascend to a
racing seat through wealth.
Born on 3 July 1987 he took an
interest in go-cart racing from
the age of four. In the early days
his father made use of a disused
trailer from the local fi sh
market to haul the young
Vettel’s go-cart from racetrack
to racetrack. The whisper in the
paddock is that some of the rich
kids on the cart circuit made
derogatory remarks about the
Vettel family’s ‘fi sh trailer’ but
were soon silenced when they
found that it was the young
Vettel that made the top step of
the podium his own. By the age
of eight he had more medals and
trophies to keep shiny than any
of his rivals, showing a natural
ability to extort speed from
anything he drove.
At the tender age of 14 he won
the Junior Monaco Kart Cup,
which earned him the
opportunity to upgrade to openwheel
racing. He then won the
2004 German Formula BMW
Championship, and earned a
promotion to the F3 Euro Series.
There he attracted enough
attention to be asked to test for F1
teams Williams and BMW Sauber.
His fi rst test drive for BMW
Sauber in Turkey in 2006 saw him
set the fastest time in the second
Friday free practice, a feat he
repeated in Italy later that year.
This earned him a permanent job
as BMW’s test driver in 2007 and
the opportunity to race at the
United States Grand Prix where
Vettel, at the age of 19, became
the youngest person to score a
world championship point.
Since moving to Red Bull in
2009, the records have kept on
tumbling. Judging by the sheer
determination Vettel has
showed since Spa to claw his way
back into contention for the 2012
title, there is little doubt that this
young German will keep putting
his name to world titles and
records.
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