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“10 years ago I would finally panic now”- Sebastian Vettel on experience keeping calm amidst Aston Martin situation

Tanish Chachra
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"10 years ago I would finally panic now"- Sebastian Vettel on experience keeping calm amidst Aston Martin situation

“10 years ago I would finally panic now”- Sebastian Vettel on keeping calm while Aston Martin not showing ideal signs in pre-season testing.

Sebastian Vettel had the lowest mileage among the 20 drivers during the three-day-long pre-season testing in Bahrain. He claimed that he would need at least 100 more laps run to settle with the car.

Yet, amidst this predicament, Vettel thinks he is calm, a thing he wouldn’t have been 10 years ago under a similar situation, and he claims it is for good.

“I’m not too preoccupied,” he said, reflecting on matters. “Maybe it’s the age, maybe it’s the experience, but probably 10 years ago, I would finally panic now. But then again, if I were to panic now, would it help? Probably not.

“We are just trying to do our things and use the time now we have. We still got some running, And for me, it was super, super useful the laps [on the final day]. So, it could be worse. It could be better, but it could be worse.

“So I think it’s about remaining calm, doing one thing at a time and moving forward when it’s time to.”

Nobody is comfortable

Even if Vettel has run the lowest laps among his counterparts, the German still feels that the three-day schedule is not enough to make anyone comfortable with new machinery.

“Even I think the people that had no trouble at all and did lots of laps, I don’t think you can acquire all the information about the new cars, the new tyres, and the changes over the winter in just one and a half days in the car.

“Let’s be honest: it’s quite difficult to practice, we need to be in the car, and we need to run. You can do a simulator all winter long, but it’s not the same.”

“So if anybody steps out of the car after one and a half days and is up to the speed that he was after 17 races in 20 weeks as we had last year, I think that’s not possible.”

“It will naturally take a little bit of time to get up to speed. But for sure, some people need more time, some who need less.”

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra

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Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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