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Vettel revives Schumacher comparisons
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SEBASTIAN Vettel entered Formula One with the nickname ‘Baby Schumi’ and comparisons with Michael Schumacher will be stronger than ever now that he has decided to walk out on Red Bull for Ferrari.
While the Italians have yet to confirm that the 27-year-old German is joining them next season, and resolutely ignored the speculation in their post-qualifying release at the Japanese Grand Prix yesterday, Red Bull was happy to steal their thunder.
“If it’s his desire to be somewhere else, then it’s not right for us to stand in his path,” said team principal Christian Horner after dropping the bombshell at the Suzuka circuit.
“As of January first he’ll be a competitor. He’ll be a Ferrari driver.”
The lure of Formula One’s most glamorous and successful team has always been almost irresistible for any driver even if the Scuderia are currently far from the force that dominated with Schumacher in the early years of the century.
Ferrari is facing its first winless season since 1993 and is going through major changes. Chairman Luca di Montezemolo is leaving this month and double world champion Fernando Alonso has appeared increasingly restless as the team is reshaped by principal Marco Mattiacci.
Just as then-principal Jean Todt assembled a winning team around a 27-year-old Schumacher, who moved from then-champion Benetton at the start of 1996, so Ferrari can be expected to try the same with Vettel.
Just as Montezemolo’s announced departure was seen as the end of an era for Ferrari, so Vettel’s departure — along with the gradual exit of star designer Adrian Newey — marks something of the same for Red Bull whatever its future fortunes.
Vettel, like Schumacher at Benetton, was the team’s first champion. He was its first race winner, took the team’s first pole position and made history with four championships in a row.
Schumacher had achieved less when he arrived at Ferrari in 1996 as a double world champion, and had to wait until 2000 before he could add his third title, but the two share the same reputation for attention to detail and determination.
The older German, now undergoing treatment at home after suffering severe head injuries in a ski accident last year, then won five championships in succession and ended his career with 91 race wins as the sport’s most successful driver.
Like Alonso at Renault and Lewis Hamilton at McLaren, Vettel has also felt the itch to move on — to leave a comfortable ‘home’ — after a long stint with a team that had nurtured him from an early age.
“At some point in your life you feel you want to do something new. That voice kept growing and led me to decide to leave Red Bull and start a new chapter,” he said yesterday.
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