As you can imagine when you’re a triple world champion, on track to make it four, your opinion is in high demand. Here’s a couple of snippets from recent interviews carried out with Sebastian Vettel, pictured above after retiring from the British GP.
From the Daily Mail: When he retired from this year’s British Grand Prix he was shamefully booed by a number of the crowd. Why? He is German and old enmities die hard. He is so successful he breeds resentment for no better reason. Does it hurt him?
‘It’s normal,’ he says, smiling, the afternoon after he cruised to victory at the Belgian Grand Prix. ‘I am very happy. I obviously would not swap with anybody.
‘There are situations or stories where you want to tell people the truth as you see it. You learn to deal with the fact some think what they want. If it reaches the point where it takes your attention away from your racing then it has got in the way.’
Has that ever happened? ‘No.’ But was the reaction at Silverstone surprising? ‘Yes. I didn’t understand it. I had not done anything to make them do it. I went up on to the stage later for the post-race concert and got booed again. I took my camera out and said, ‘If you are going to boo me at least do it properly. I tried to make a laugh out of it.
‘But you don’t like it when people boo. Obviously in the British Grand Prix if I am leading and they want a British driver to win they might not like it, which is fair, but booing, I don’t think that is fair. If one starts booing, others join in. I don’t think they were all wanting to boo per se; it was a chain reaction, so you shouldn’t get too upset by that.’
From PlanetF1: Asked how he expects his new Australian team-mate to perform, Vettel told reporters at Monza: “It’s difficult to say because at the moment he’s not in a car which allows him to score points regularly and race in the sort of area that we race.
“But I’m very sure he’s pushing very hard; he has been the last couple of years and I’m sure he will be in particular next year trying to do everything to beat me.
“So in that regard nothing changes, I’ll have another Australian trying to make my life difficult!”
It’s worth reading the Daily Mail article in full, in truth he doesn’t come across too bad. But we’ll still enjoy doing our bit to ensure Sebastian continues in his pantomime villain role next year when “Our Daniel” joins his side.
[Pic: Red Bull/Getty Images]
