Finally, Vettel gains the acceptance he has always craved

Sebastian Vettel has taken his place among the very greatest drivers of the sport by clinching his fourth world championship yesterday. He joins the legendary Juan Manuel Fangio, Alain Prost and Michael Schumacher as only the fourth driver to win four titles and betters his illustrious predecessors by becoming the youngest four-time world champion and the first driver in the history of the sport to win his first four championships in succession. It marks the latest milestone for the son of a carpenter from Heppenheim in what has been a blazing, record-breaking career, ever in the ascendant, filled mostly with highs and very few lows. But it marks a watershed moment in Vettel’s career for another reason. Because on Sunday, as he performed tyre-smoking donuts in celebration on the home-straight, as he knelt before his car in a gesture of appreciation for all the work that his team puts in for him, he finally gained the acceptance he has always craved for. A cursory look at Vettel’s career will tell you that he has always been a man in a hurry. Identified as a future star of the sport by seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher while still driving go-karts, Vettel first took part in a Grand Prix weekend at the 2006 Turkish Grand Prix at the tender age of 19, taking no time at all to get up to speed, and straight away setting the quickest time in the second Friday practice session in his BMW. [caption id=“attachment_1198027” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Vettel has won his 4th title and he is just 26. AP[/caption] His Grand Prix debut, again with BMW, followed less than a year later at the 2007 U.S. Grand Prix the young German deputising for an injured Robert Kubica and finishing the race in the points to become the youngest points-scorer in the history of the sport. Things fell into place quickly for Vettel, following that impressive rookie drive, and Red Bull soon slotted him into a Toro Rosso , clearly grooming the young German for a drive at the energy drinks company’s senior team. His performances on track inevitably drew comparisons with his hero Michael Schumacher and Vettel was dubbed ‘Baby Schumi,’ a nickname he was quick to shrug off. His career continued to hit new highs at Toro Rosso, Vettel claiming his maiden Grand Prix win from pole at the 2008 Italian Grand Prix in the pouring rain before moving up to the senior team the following year, ending the season as runner up to Jenson Button in the standings having taken four wins. The rest, as they say, is history as 2010 onwards Vettel and Red Bull proceeded to utterly dominate the sport in a way not seen since the Schumacher years a decade ago, the combination winning 31 races and sweeping both titles for four years straight since then. Yet, there has been something missing –Vettel has never truly been acknowledged as a great, or even as a driver on the same level as a Lewis Hamilton or Fernando Alonso. And that has hurt. Vettel takes a keen interest in the history of the sport and is very conscious of his place in it. He takes home boxes of memorabilia from all his races and often writes to legends of the sport like Sir Stirling Moss or Sir Jackie Stewart, asking for autographed copies of their old pictures and the fact that he hasn’t been counted as belonging to that select group of drivers has bothered him. All he can do to prove himself over and over again, after all, is win and that is exactly what he is doing. Yet that recognition has been slow to come with fans and even his fellow drivers, at times, giving his car and Adrian Newey, the man who designed it, most of the credit. It’s true that Vettel has had a dominant car and would probably not have won as many races as he has had he not been sitting in that Red Bull. But, equally, I feel it does not take anything away from Vettel as a driver. Would he win races in a bad car as Alonso, Hamilton and Schumacher have done? I believe he would. To be fair, Vettel hasn’t made it easy for himself to be loved and accepted by the fans either and incidents like Malaysia this year, when Vettel robbed Webber of the win, have made him an extremely unpopular winner. Fans may have tired of him winning in the last two years as well but they still liked the Vettel they saw on television, an easy-going, Monty Python-loving boy next door, simply living his dream, feet firmly planted on the ground but still wide-eyed with wonder at all the success and adulation coming his way. But that image that he had worked so hard to cultivate, that mask, slipped in Malaysia to reveal a ruthless, win-at-all-costs mentality, not dissimilar to Schumacher, and the fans were immediately turned off, booing a man who should have been hailed as a great in waiting as he stood on the top step of podiums around the world. In that sense, this year has probably been the toughest of his four championship winning years for Vettel, even if results-wise it has been the most dominant. In fact, Vettel admitted as much following the race yesterday. Defences lowered, as he stood there on the podium, his mind trying to make sense of it all, running through several competing strands of thought and emotions, staggered at his achievement and trying to make sense of his place in the history of the sport, Vettel for the first time admitted how difficult it had been for him to not feel appreciated. “I think it was a difficult one all in all, very difficult one for me personally,” Vettel, who until then had brushed off the booing, said. “To receive boos, even though you haven’t done anything wrong, to overcome that and to give the right answer on the track and finally get the acceptance that I think we’re all looking for as racing drivers… it makes me very proud. To join people like Prost, Fangio and Michael is unbelievable.”