Camila Vega
After announcing his retirement, social networks have been flooded with the hashtag #ThankYouSeb as a way of thanking the German driver, Sebastian Vettel. So, to honor his career, today we bring you the top 5 victories of Sebastian Vettel of all time in his Formula 1 career.
Top 5 Victories of Sebastian Vettel of All Time
1. 2008 | Italian GP
Vettel surely became a better driver after 2008. Red Bull’s 2008 season was undoubtedly one of its best, but even so the team formerly known as Minardi was a points scorer rather than a podium contender.
Rain during qualifying at Monza allowed Vettel, whose engine was provided by Ferrari, to take a sensational pole. Vettel drove with great disillusion, as if he had nothing to lose, as he had done in qualifying. He then survived a wild moment early on and was still leading after the first round of pit stops. At half distance, Vettel had in his mirrors the unstoppable Lewis Hamilton, the McLaren man charging after starting 15th.
If it rained again, Hamilton could keep racing on those tires until the end, while Vettel needed another pit stop to change them. But the rain stayed away, forcing Hamilton to pit again for intermediates, leaving Vettel to make his second scheduled pit visit without losing the lead.
He got to the checkered flag with Kovalainen 12.5 seconds behind, and he became the youngest F1 winner at the time. And Red Bull scored its first –and so far only– victory over the Red Bull ‘A-team’. “Without Sebastian in the car, this victory would not have been possible,” said Red Bull technical director Giorgio Ascanelli. “It was an incredible day, with a package that wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near the podium,” Vettel said years later. “I am extremely proud to have been a part of that miraculous day.”
2. 2013 | Indian GP
There were times during Vettel’s Red Bull era when the need to take care of the Pirelli tires hid some advantage of the combination. That was certainly the case in many races in 2013, but at Buddh, Vettel was able to use the soft tire to take pole by a whopping 0.752 s and the more durable medium tire to win the race by almost half a minute.
The only problem was that the soft tires Vettel had to start with were only good for a handful of laps. Vettel pitted from the lead at the end of the second lap of 60, and he got into traffic. Aided by a longer top gear and less wing than originally planned, Vettel stormed through the field, having briefly dropped to 17th place.
By the end of lap 13, he moved up to 3rd place and overtook the McLaren of Sergio Pérez second eighth of a lap later. “Vettel made full use of DRS to pass people on every lap, carefully making sure he met them at just the right time and not in the fast middle part and missing the turn,” Hughes wrote in our report.
When his teammate, Webber, with a different strategy but unable to cut through traffic in the same way, pitted, Vettel was back in front. Webber retired with an alternator failure two-thirds of the way through, leaving Vettel with a big lead. Despite turning off his KERS as a precautionary measure, he took the checkered flag 29.8s ahead of second-placed Rosberg. It was a fitting way for Vettel to secure his fourth world title.
3. 2011 | Italian GP
“How the slowest car won the fastest race,” was the cover story in Autosport magazine. Running higher downforce levels at Monza gives a faster lap time, but teams tend to shy away from it because it can leave cars vulnerable to being overtaken in the high-speed section.
Such was Vettel’s confidence, he was able to run a set-up and top gear short that made him nearly 20 km/h (12 mph) faster on the straights and still qualify on pole by 0.45 s. That meant it was higher in the non-DRS rev range, and Vettel duly won the race, after getting a good pass on Alonso’s battling Ferrari.
Alonso had overcome Vettel at the start, just before the safety car was called for a crash at the first corner. At the restart, Hamilton’s McLaren was crucially overtaken by Michael Schumacher’s Mercedes, while a lap later, Vettel got a run on Alonso coming out of the first chicane. Through the Grande turn, Alonso left enough room on the outside, Vettel took a pinch of grass to survive.
“Even Fernando must have been impressed by that one,” our report says. “He made you wink just by looking.” With the McLarens of Hamilton and Button, potentially the only cars with the pace to challenge, stuck behind Schumacher, Vettel pulled away. He remained undisputed for the remainder of the 53-lap race, coming home 9.6 seconds ahead Button, who had finally moved into second place on lap 38.
4. 2011 | Spanish GP
Red Bull called Vettel early, meaning he emerged behind Button’s McLaren. Crucially, Vettel quickly found a way around Button and the Ferrari of Felipe Massa. Not being able to do the same cost Webber when Hamilton overtook him after his stop.
In the second round of stops, Vettel finally overtook Alonso by stopping a lap early. But Hamilton, running longer, also got ahead of the Ferrari once he finally got in and the McLaren was a threat to Red Bull, particularly as Vettel’s KERS intermittently overheated. Hamilton approached. At half distance, the gap was only 1.2 s and Vettel soon came in for his third stop.
The McLaren stopped a lap later, and 2.7 s separated them with 30 laps to go. Although Hamilton closed again and applied pressure, Sebastian was up to the task. He placed his car right where he needed it, and showed wonderful judgment in resisting the temptation to defend when Lewis was close, but not close enough. It was the same story after his fourth and final stops, Vettel edged Hamilton by 0.6 s.
5. 2010 | Abu Dhabi GP
With two rounds (and 50 points) remaining in the 2010 campaign, the German was only fourth in the drivers’ standings, 25 points behind Alonso. A victory in Brazil moved the German into third place, but he was still 15 ahead Alonso and seven behind his Red Bull teammate Webber.
Vettel beat Hamilton to pole by 0.031 s in Abu Dhabi and held off the McLaren at the first corner. Hamilton kept Vettel under pressure, but when they emerged on either side of traffic after their only stops, victory was all but sealed for Red Bull. Vettel turned off his engine and came home 10.2 seconds ahead after a race that earned him a 10/10 in Autosport’s driver ratings.
That performance probably should have been a heroic failure: doing everything possible to secure the title, but missing out because others were behind, doing what they had to do. But they did not. Webber pitted early (lap 11 of 55), and Ferrari reacted by bringing in Alonso to cover him four laps later, hoping that the favorites would follow suit thanks to tire degradation.
But once the granulation phase was over, the leaders were able to increase their pace and stay on the sidelines. That left the Spaniard behind the Renault of Vitaly Petrov, who had stopped during an early safety car period, and meant that Alonso was vulnerable to being jumped by subsequent stops. For the rest of the race, Alonso was unable to overtake Petrov, which meant that the Ferrari only finished seventh, with Webber also caught just behind.
The result was that the victorious Vettel beat Alonso by four points and Webber by 14 to secure his first world title. Autosport described him as “one of the sport’s great surprises”, but Sebastian had played his part in a remarkable finish.
