Words by Dionysis Nanos
It’s been the biggest news of the motor racing world for 2020, and unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple of days, here’s the rundown. Sebastian Vettel, 4 times world’s champion and Ferrari have parted ways, in a move that didn’t really catch anyone off guard, since let’s be honest, the writing was on the wall ever since the 2019 season ended. Now many a Ferrari fanboy have rushed out to say good riddance to the German but there are quite a lot of things to talk about here; things that revolve around the past, the present and of course the future.
Let’s start with the past. Everyone was excited from his move from Red Bull to Ferrari. I mean… which driver doesn’t want to have the word “Ferrari” on their resume? It was supposed to be the defining winning combination. From 2015 to 2018 Ferrari had two former world champions, and still the results of these four seasons can be described as mediocre at best for a team with a magnitude as sheer as Ferrari’s. Yes, Vettel managed to secure two second place championship finishes, in 2017 and 2018, and if you take into consideration how all-conquering Mercedes has been in the hybrid era, it’s amazing that he even managed to achieve that. And indeed everyone was happy with the German until that point. And then 2019 happened…
Charles Leclerc proving his worth
See, the 2019 season and what is happening right now are tightly connected together. 2019 was an odd year for the Prancing Horse. Raikonnen was out and in his place came Charles Leclerc, someone that everyone got excited for and for good reason. He’s young, he’s fast and he is the clean slate that Ferrari can built its future on. That meant one thing. Vettel fell out of favor. And not only was 2019 the year that he fell out of favor but it also happened to be one of his less successful seasons as well. Immediately the Ferrari fans started attacking, while forgetting that the guy had been there for four years already and had still managed to put up a fight with Mercedes for two years straight. Suddenly Vettel started being associated with words and phrases like “overrated” and “past his prime” and of course the fans started treating Leclerc like the red and yellow savior. All because of one okay-ish season. This lead to Vettel playing second best to Leclerc for 2020, with everything that involves, most noted of which is a big money cut. The bad 2019 season, Ferrari’s decision to stand behind Leclerc and the fact that the fans have a memory that’s marginally worse of that of a dementia patient lead to the big headlines. But what now?
It’s already known that Carlos Sainz is taking Vettel’s place for 2021 and that Daniel Ricciardo is moving to his seat in McLaren. But where does that leave Vettel? Is it Renault and the empty seat left by Ricciardo? Could it be a move to Indy Cars like what Fernando Alonso did? Could it be retirement, something that can be justified as the man has three children? No one can know for sure. But until we know anything new the fact of the matter is that Vettel’s stint with Ferrari has far more good points than bad ones, and we should focus on these more, before jumping into the “About time he was gone” bandwagon…
