When I heard that there had been published a book about Sebastian Vettel, the quadruple F1 world champion, I was absolutely thrilled. I wanted to get the book in my hands right away and I managed to find it in the local library. The title of the book is "Sebastian Vettel - The biography" and it has been written by Karin Sturm, a highly accredited motor sports reporter, who has been reporting about Formula 1 races around the world since the 1980´s.
Sturm´s book gives a thorough look at Sebastian Vettel´s motor racing career. It´s obvious Sebastian Vettel is no ordinary racing driver. At the moment the German Ferrari pilot is only 28 years old, which means that he has plenty of more years of F1 racing still awaiting. Who knows what achievements Sebastian will clinch in the future but by the age of 28 Sebastian has already won four championship titles at the wheel of his Red Bull. The book tells every detail about his unbelievable success story so far. Already at very early age Sebastian showed his talent behind the wheel of a go-kart and there was no doubt he was meant to drive fast! In terms of Formula 1 it has been a fairytale since the very beginning of his career in 2006. Sebastian got a chance to drive a BMW Sauber in the Friday´s free practice session at Istanbul Park and right away the German teenager set the fastest lap time and topped the time sheets! At Monza in 2008 Sebastian became the youngest-ever pole-setter in the history of F1 and during the very same weekend he broke another record by becoming the youngest-ever GP winner in the rainy and demanding conditions at the wheel of his Toro Rosso. In 2009 Sebastian moved to Red Bull and drove an amazing season in spite of the technical problems and almost managed to challenge Button for the championship.
2009 was the year when I started secretly pay attention to Sebastian´s driving. There was something extraordinary about this certain Sebastian, which caught my eye. Nowadays my admiration for him is no secret any more! There´re separate chapters about all his championship-winning seasons from 2010 till 2013 and also a chapter about Sebastian´s last season at Red Bull in 2014, which turned out to be filled with difficulties and less success. It was nostalgic to read about the season 2010 for example because I can still remember so clear what went through my mind after Turkish GP, where Sebastian collided with his team-mate Webber and started a huge fuss in the media. In spite of the amazing success there have been memorable moments, which haven´t been memorable in a positive way. Like the Malaysian GP in 2013 with the legendary "multi21" scandal. Webber was leading the race and Sebastian was told "multi21" on the team radio, which meant he wasn´t allowed to pass his team-mate but the car number 2 was supposed to cross the finish line ahead of the car number 1. Sebastian, however, saw his chance to overtake and as a passionate racing driver he ignored the team´s order not to overtake and passed Webber and won the grand prix! It was emotional to go through all these glorious seasons almost race by race but as a huge Vettel fan I´m already very ware of all the on-track incidents. As a fan I would have loved to read more stories behind the scenes! Like details about the discussions inside the team in 2010 when for a moment everything seemed to go all wrong for Sebastian but against the odds he managed to turn the setbacks into historical success. Or inside stories about the famous "multi21" scandal...
There are many powerful figures behind Sebastian´s success: Dr Mario Theissen (the former BMW Motorsport Director), Dr Helmut Marko (advisor to the Red Bull Racing Formula One Team) and Christian Horner (Team Principal of the Red Bull Racing Formula One Team). All these men have been interviewed for this book. There´s no doubt that in the eyes of all these men Sebastian Vettel is a racing driver with extraordinary talent and skill, which only a very few have behind the wheel. In addition to that his intelligence also separates him from the majority of drivers. These interviews give you an image of Sebastian Vettel as the perfect F1 driver, which he very much is. But in spite of all the championship titles every racing driver has his strenghts and weaknesses but there were hardly any critical statements about Sebastian in the book. As a fan I would have loved to read about his "Achilles heels" and weak moments among that fairytale-reminding success.
If Sebastian himself is asked what he is like, he says he´s an ordinary guy. In a way he is: he doesn´t like to be in the lime light and enjoys doing ordinary things. Against all odds the huge success hasn´t changed him: the man still has his feet firmly on the ground. He´s also described as an open, friendly and utterly honest guy. Although I would have loved to read more stories behind the scenes, there was one absolutely touching story in the book considering Sebastian´s honesty. Red Bull´s Team Principal Horner told a story about an incident, which took place once when Sebastian was visiting him. They had decided to shoot clays with an air rifle and naturally it turned into a competition. It was a late summer night and it had already become dark. Horner told Sebastian he bet Sebastian couldn´t hit "the thing in the tree". It was so far that Horner couldn´t even see what it actually was and considered it absolutely impossible that Sebastian could actually hit it. Of course Sebastian took the challenge and made the most amazing shot ever and dropped the thing from the tree. They both ran to it and noticed it was a bird. Sebastian was absolutely shocked, he wouldn´t have wanted to do it! He would have wanted to take the bird to a vet and tried to save it. But it was obvious that the poor thing didn´t survive. Horner thought the saddest thing about the case was that it was such a small night bird, which was close to his wife´s heart. His wife had already named the bird Walter. When they walked back to Horner´s house he said to Sebastian that he mustn´t tell that he had shot Walter but that he had accidentally hit a pigeon. Of course Horner´s wife Beverly asked what they had hit and Horner tried to lie about hitting a pigeon accidentally. But Sebastian had covered his face with his hands and Beverly saw instantly that everything wasn´t okay. Then Sebastian confessed that he had shot Walter. He was utterly upset and just couldn´t lie about what had happened. This story made a huge impression on me! Charasteristics like this make me admire him so so much!
The book ends with a chapter about Sebastian turning a new leaf in his career and moving to Ferrari for the season 2015. In ten years of time there might be another book coming out, which tells the story of Sebastian´s years in Ferrari and, who knows, maybe about his 5th and 6th championship titles. One thing is for sure: Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Räikkönen make the ultimate dream team and I can´t help dreaming about a book written about these guys´ action both on and off track!
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