Four-times Formula 1 world champion Sebastian Vettel says he regrets not being more vocal about equality, climate change and other social issues which concern him earlier in his career.
Vettel raced in F1 between 2007 and 2022. Over his final two seasons he became more outspoken on issues such as the under-representation of women in motor racing, gay rights and the environment.
After winning his four world championships with Red Bull, Vettel spent six years at Ferrari before ending his career at Aston Martin. Over his final two years in F1 Vettel drew attention to the issues which concerned him through his choices of helmet designs and apparel.
He admitted it “wasn’t the plan” to begin advocating different causes. “When I started as a rookie, I was solely focused on racing and it was the only thing that was occupying my day, really,” Vettel told the BBC.
Vettel ran an all-girls karting event in Saudi Arabia in 2021
“But towards the last couple of years, I think it’s probably one of the things, maybe the only thing that I would say I regret, is not to speak out earlier in my career and seeing the potential power in terms of reach and audience that you might have as a professional athlete to inspire people.
“Since then [I’ve been] trying to spread messages that are important to me.”
In 2021, when F1 first visited Saudi Arabia, Vettel ran an all-female karting event in Jeddah. Women in Saudi Arabia face strict limits on their rights and require the permission of men to do many things. The government did not permit them to hold driving licences until 2018.
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Vettel is working on another project in Saudi Arabia. “I’ve been there in 2021 launching the ‘Race for Women’ event which was mostly about taking young girls and women to the track and giving them a glimpse of racing in go-karts and we had a fun day and that’s the story we’re trying to continue to tell.
2022 Canadian GP protest helmet prompted claims of “hypocrisy”
“It’s always difficult with these things how much impact you might have. Certainly we had a lot of impact on all these girls and gave them a lot of courage for the future to speak out in a country that is changing and evolving and things are improving. So the intention really is to go back and continue once we’ve sort of planted the seeds and give those girls and women a little bit of a voice.”
He said he is keen to see more women get into motorsport. “When I did go-karts in Europe I raced girls but it was very rare,” he explained. “The more girls we have participating and less of these stereotypes that girls can’t race, I think it’s positive, it’s good evolution.
“It is important in Europe but it’s even more important I think in a place like Saudi where you can feel things are opening up, maybe not with the speed we all wish or some people expect but there are steps. It’s great to see these girls get a chance to get behind the wheel.
“It’s about spreading the message and keeping planting the seeds, inspire those girls and young women. But inspiring people around the world as well with the platform that I have.”
Now in the third year of his retirement from F1, Vettel said he’s keen to see his former championship rival Lewis Hamilton succeed at Ferrari. Vettel was unable to win a title at the Scuderia, which he admitted was partly “because Lewis was there” at Mercedes.
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“Let’s see now how he will get on. But my fingers are crossed, obviously, I’ve raced him a long time, we get along really well, and he’s by far the most outspoken driver on the grid at the minute.
“His on-track skills don’t need to be repeated, I think the numbers and statistics speak for themselves. But it’s great to see that he’s still on the grid and he still has that influence and uses it in a positive manner. So naturally my fingers are crossed for him to win the championship.
“But also Charles [Leclerc] is there, I raced with him, so I think it’s a strong line-up. In the end it takes a lot of things to come together, to be there in the last couple of races to fight for the championship.”
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Most racing drivers dream of becoming the Formula 1 world champion with Ferrari one day. But very few manage to turn that dream into reality.
This year Lewis Hamilton aims to prove otherwise. His move from Mercedes to Ferrari ranks among the most significant transfers in F1 history because it connects the most successful driver (seven world titles) with the most successful team (15 drivers’ and 16 constructors’ championships).
But Hamilton is by no means the first world champion to make the switch to Maranello. Other title winners have also tried their luck in red – with varying degrees of success.
We take a look at the first grand prix weekend for each of those champions – and whether it foreshadowed a successful title campaign…
1956: Fangio takes a shared victory
Fangio and Ferrari wasn’t a perfect match, even if they did win 1956 title together
Photo by: LAT Photographic
Juan Manuel Fangio was already the most successful driver of Formula 1’s first decade when he moved to Ferrari for the 1956 season. He had already won titles in 1951 with Alfa Romeo, in 1954 with Maserati and Mercedes, and in 1955 with Mercedes.
It was a hallmark of Fangio’s career that he ruthlessly sought out the most competitive seats. But this marriage with Ferrari was born out of convenience rather than love, since Merc’s withdrawal from racing and Maserati’s shaky finances made Maranello his best option.
Fangio’s home race in Argentina was his first grand prix for Ferrari. But it didn’t go according to plan: a faulty fuel pump slowed him down, prompting him to take over team-mate Luigi Musso’s car on lap 30 of 98.
Musso had been running in fifth place before handing over. Fangio took off in pursuit of the leaders but overcooked it after passing Jean Behra’s Maserati, losing time to a spin.
Then, over the course of three laps as half-distance approached in the three-hour event, the frontrunners hit trouble. Fangio’s other team-mate Eugenio Castellotti suffered a gearbox failure, Carlos Menditeguy’s Maserati broke a driveshaft, and an ominous plume of smoke developed in the wake of Stirling Moss’s similar car.
Fangio overtook Behra again and made short work of Moss as his engine continued to tighten up. Since Fangio shared his car with Musso, they split the points for the victory. However, Fangio still left Argentina as the championship leader, thanks to an extra point for the fastest lap.
Mechanical trouble dogged Fangio throughout the season and neither did he get on with team manager Eraldo Sculati; he was only persuaded to remain at Ferrari when he was given a mechanic to tend his car exclusively. When a steering arm broke in the final round at Monza, and Musso refused to hand over his car, Fangio’s title hopes looked precarious until Peter Collins did the decent thing: three points for second place in the shared car was enough to stay ahead of Moss.
Fangio then moved to Maserati for 1957, where he secured his fifth and final title.
1990: Retirement sets the tone for Prost’s time at Ferrari
Prost’s Ferrari career didn’t get off to the best of starts in Phoenix
Photo by: Ercole Colombo
Alain Prost’s bitter rivalry with Ayrton Senna at McLaren meant something had to change. Even before Prost got the 1989 world championship over the line, he’d made arrangements to move to Ferrari – and infuriated McLaren boss Ron Dennis by dropping his trophy into the crowd after winning the Italian Grand Prix.
Prost therefore carried the number one on his Ferrari 641 for the 1990 season opener at the unloved Phoenix street circuit, where unexpected (and unusual for the Arizona desert) rain on Saturday meant the grid was set by times from Friday – this being an era before qualifying was consolidated into one TV-friendly session. That meant Prost started seventh with team-mate Nigel Mansell 17th.
Gearbox issues dropped Prost to ninth at the start. He fought back to fourth by lap 17 but just four laps later his gearbox gave up completely – a less spectacular retirement than Mansell, who spun out with his engine aflame.
Prost bounced back quickly, though, winning the next race in Brazil – Senna’s home ground – and four more victories kept him in contention against his nemesis. His title hopes, however, ended at the penultimate race in Japan, where Senna had his infamous ‘moment of madness’ at Turn 1 and took both cars out.
The 1991 Ferrari wasn’t competitive enough to string together a title challenge despite the arrival of a new car mid-season. Internal politics built to a point where Prost was fired after the penultimate round, having compared the handling of his car unfavourably with a truck.
1996: Schumacher loses to Irvine
Schumacher suffered a rare defeat to Irvine in qualifying for his first Ferrari race
Photo by: Motorsport Images
Twice a world champion with Benetton, Michael Schumacher felt compromised by allegations that the team had been cheating and exited his contract early to move to Ferrari. There he faced the challenge of the new V10-powered F310 and team-mate Eddie Irvine, a feisty individual known for not respecting reputations (a trait that had earned him a punch to the head from Senna).
In the season opener in Melbourne, Irvine unexpectedly outperformed Schumacher in qualifying, beating him by two and a half tenths to secure third place on the grid, one spot ahead of Michael. But the fact that they were half a second off the pace of the Williams cars on the front row amply illustrated the challenge facing Ferrari in 1996.
When the race was restarted after a first-lap shunt, Schumacher initially turned the tables on his team-mate and ran third. Brake problems then began to set in, ultimately forcing him to retire and elevating Irvine to third – but it would be Eddie’s only podium that year.
While Irvine only managed three more points finishes and ended the season 10th in the standings, Schumacher claimed three victories in the ungainly-looking F310 in Barcelona, Spa, and Monza. He finished third in the championship behind the dominant Williams drivers, Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve.
The following seasons took a relentless upward trajectory: from 2000 to 2004, Michael took five consecutive world championships in red.
2010: Vettel’s misfortune is Alonso’s gain
Alonso’s Ferrari career got off to a great start but never yielded the title
Photo by: Sutton Images
When the McLaren relationship turned sour and a return to Renault proved disappointing, Alonso turned to Ferrari in 2010 in the hope of winning a third world championship. But his opening weekend in Bahrain began with disappointment: he qualified 0.35s behind team-mate Felipe Massa.
In the race, Alonso got the upper hand over Massa and ran second until a spark plug failure slowed down leader Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull. Alonso took advantage, swiftly overtook the ailing RB6, and won by 16.1s.
After this early success, Alonso didn’t win another race until round 11, in Germany (controversially, when Ferrari imposed illegal team orders via coded message). A late-season flurry of three further wins meant he arrived at the finale in Abu Dhabi with a narrow points lead over Vettel’s team-mate, Mark Webber, and Vettel himself.
But, despite Vettel’s presence on pole position, the Ferrari pitwall had its eyes on the wrong Red Bull. Pitting early to cover Webber’s stop left Alonso stuck behind Vitaly Petrov’s Renault and consigned him to seventh place at the flag, while Vettel won the race and the championship.
Alonso’s disappointed face after the chequered flag became a meme, symbolising his title-less years at Ferrari.
2015: A podium for Vettel
Vettel was another champion who failed to truly hit the heights while at Ferrari
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images
After a winless and frustrating 2014 season, Vettel abandoned Red Bull and sought a fresh start at Ferrari. The Scuderia’s 2015 car was better than its disappointing predecessor and Vettel narrowly outperformed team-mate Kimi Raikkonen to secure fourth on the grid in Melbourne.
Vettel stood little chance against the dominant Mercedes duo of Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, but he did manage to pass Massa’s Williams in the pitstop phase, grabbing third place. He held that position until the chequered flag – a good start to his Ferrari career given Mercedes’ pace advantage.
Indeed, Vettel seemed to overturn the established competitive order in his very next race, qualifying second to Hamilton in Malaysia and then beating both Mercedes in the race. Two more victories in Hungary and Singapore cemented him as Ferrari’s lead driver, with Raikkonen cast as dutiful number two.
However, Vettel was fated never to achieve his ambition of winning a championship with Ferrari.
What about Hamilton?
A reflective Hamilton ponders his Ferrari debut
Photo by: Ferrari
Is there anything approaching a pattern in this history of previous champions gunning for further glory in red? Only that Ferrari debuts can vary dramatically, even for the best of the best.
Some, like Fangio and Alonso, hit the ground running with victories. Others, like Schumacher and Vettel, needed more time to find their rhythm. And some, like Prost, faced immediate setbacks that foreshadowed greater disappointments.
Now, as Hamilton embarks on his Ferrari journey in 2025, the big question remains: will his debut be a sign of things to come?
In this article
Stefan Ehlen
Formula 1
Michael Schumacher
Fernando Alonso
Lewis Hamilton
Alain Prost
Juan Manuel Fangio
Sebastian Vettel
Ferrari
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Every racing driver dreams of becoming the Formula 1 world champion with Ferrari one day. But very few manage to turn that dream into reality.
This year Lewis Hamilton aims to prove otherwise. His move from Mercedes to Ferrari ranks among the most significant transfers in F1 history because it connects the most successful driver (seven world titles) with the most successful team (15 drivers’ and 16 constructors’ championships).
But Hamilton is by no means the first world champion to make the switch to Maranello. Other title winners have also tried their luck in red – with varying degrees of success.
We take a look at the first grand prix weekend for each of those champions – and whether it foreshadowed a successful title campaign…
1956: Fangio takes a shared victory
Fangio and Ferrari wasn’t a perfect match, even if they did win 1956 title together
Photo by: LAT Photographic
Juan Manuel Fangio was already the most successful driver of Formula 1’s first decade when he moved to Ferrari for the 1956 season. He had already won titles in 1951 with Alfa Romeo, in 1954 with Maserati and Mercedes, and in 1955 with Mercedes.
It was a hallmark of Fangio’s career that he ruthlessly sought out the most competitive seats. But this marriage with Ferrari was born out of convenience rather than love, since Merc’s withdrawal from racing and Maserati’s shaky finances made Maranello his best option.
Fangio’s home race in Argentina was his first grand prix for Ferrari. But it didn’t go according to plan: a faulty fuel pump slowed him down, prompting him to take over team-mate Luigi Musso’s car on lap 30 of 98.
Musso had been running in fifth place before handing over. Fangio took off in pursuit of the leaders but overcooked it after passing Jean Behra’s Maserati, losing time to a spin.
Then, over the course of three laps as half-distance approached in the three-hour event, the frontrunners hit trouble. Fangio’s other team-mate Eugenio Castellotti suffered a gearbox failure, Carlos Menditeguy’s Maserati broke a driveshaft, and an ominous plume of smoke developed in the wake of Stirling Moss’s similar car.
Fangio overtook Behra again and made short work of Moss as his engine continued to tighten up. Since Fangio shared his car with Musso, they split the points for the victory. However, Fangio still left Argentina as the championship leader, thanks to an extra point for the fastest lap.
Mechanical trouble dogged Fangio throughout the season and neither did he get on with team manager Eraldo Sculati; he was only persuaded to remain at Ferrari when he was given a mechanic to tend his car exclusively. When a steering arm broke in the final round at Monza, and Musso refused to hand over his car, Fangio’s title hopes looked precarious until Peter Collins did the decent thing: three points for second place in the shared car was enough to stay ahead of Moss.
Fangio then moved to Maserati for 1957, where he secured his fifth and final title.
1990: Retirement sets the tone for Prost’s time at Ferrari
Prost’s Ferrari career didn’t get off to the best of starts in Phoenix
Photo by: Ercole Colombo
Alain Prost’s bitter rivalry with Ayrton Senna at McLaren meant something had to change. Even before Prost got the 1989 world championship over the line, he’d made arrangements to move to Ferrari – and infuriated McLaren boss Ron Dennis by dropping his trophy into the crowd after winning the Italian Grand Prix.
Prost therefore carried the number one on his Ferrari 641 for the 1990 season opener at the unloved Phoenix street circuit, where unexpected (and unusual for the Arizona desert) rain on Saturday meant the grid was set by times from Friday – this being an era before qualifying was consolidated into one TV-friendly session. That meant Prost started seventh with team-mate Nigel Mansell 17th.
Gearbox issues dropped Prost to ninth at the start. He fought back to fourth by lap 17 but just four laps later his gearbox gave up completely – a less spectacular retirement than Mansell, who spun out with his engine aflame.
Prost bounced back quickly, though, winning the next race in Brazil – Senna’s home ground – and four more victories kept him in contention against his nemesis. His title hopes, however, ended at the penultimate race in Japan, where Senna had his infamous ‘moment of madness’ at Turn 1 and took both cars out.
The 1991 Ferrari wasn’t competitive enough to string together a title challenge despite the arrival of a new car mid-season. Internal politics built to a point where Prost was fired after the penultimate round, having compared the handling of his car unfavourably with a truck.
1996: Schumacher loses to Irvine
Schumacher suffered a rare defeat to Irvine in qualifying for his first Ferrari race
Photo by: Motorsport Images
Twice a world champion with Benetton, Michael Schumacher felt compromised by allegations that the team had been cheating and exited his contract early to move to Ferrari. There he faced the challenge of the new V10-powered F310 and team-mate Eddie Irvine, a feisty individual known for not respecting reputations (a trait that had earned him a punch to the head from Senna).
In the season opener in Melbourne, Irvine unexpectedly outperformed Schumacher in qualifying, beating him by two and a half tenths to secure third place on the grid, one spot ahead of Michael. But the fact that they were half a second off the pace of the Williams cars on the front row amply illustrated the challenge facing Ferrari in 1996.
When the race was restarted after a first-lap shunt, Schumacher initially turned the tables on his team-mate and ran third. Brake problems then began to set in, ultimately forcing him to retire and elevating Irvine to third – but it would be Eddie’s only podium that year.
While Irvine only managed three more points finishes and ended the season 10th in the standings, Schumacher claimed three victories in the ungainly-looking F310 in Barcelona, Spa, and Monza. He finished third in the championship behind the dominant Williams drivers, Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve.
The following seasons took a relentless upward trajectory: from 2000 to 2004, Michael took five consecutive world championships in red.
2010: Vettel’s misfortune is Alonso’s gain
Alonso’s Ferrari career got off to a great start but never yielded the title
Photo by: Sutton Images
When the McLaren relationship turned sour and a return to Renault proved disappointing, Alonso turned to Ferrari in 2010 in the hope of winning a third world championship. But his opening weekend in Bahrain began with disappointment: he qualified 0.35s behind team-mate Felipe Massa.
In the race, Alonso got the upper hand over Massa and ran second until a spark plug failure slowed down leader Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull. Alonso took advantage, swiftly overtook the ailing RB6, and won by 16.1s.
After this early success, Alonso didn’t win another race until round 11, in Germany (controversially, when Ferrari imposed illegal team orders via coded message). A late-season flurry of three further wins meant he arrived at the finale in Abu Dhabi with a narrow points lead over Vettel’s team-mate, Mark Webber, and Vettel himself.
But, despite Vettel’s presence on pole position, the Ferrari pitwall had its eyes on the wrong Red Bull. Pitting early to cover Webber’s stop left Alonso stuck behind Vitaly Petrov’s Renault and consigned him to seventh place at the flag, while Vettel won the race and the championship.
Alonso’s disappointed face after the chequered flag became a meme, symbolising his title-less years at Ferrari.
2015: A podium for Vettel
Vettel was another champion who failed to truly hit the heights while at Ferrari
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images
After a winless and frustrating 2014 season, Vettel abandoned Red Bull and sought a fresh start at Ferrari. The Scuderia’s 2015 car was better than its disappointing predecessor and Vettel narrowly outperformed team-mate Kimi Raikkonen to secure fourth on the grid in Melbourne.
Vettel stood little chance against the dominant Mercedes duo of Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, but he did manage to pass Massa’s Williams in the pitstop phase, grabbing third place. He held that position until the chequered flag – a good start to his Ferrari career given Mercedes’ pace advantage.
Indeed, Vettel seemed to overturn the established competitive order in his very next race, qualifying second to Hamilton in Malaysia and then beating both Mercedes in the race. Two more victories in Hungary and Singapore cemented him as Ferrari’s lead driver, with Raikkonen cast as dutiful number two.
However, Vettel was fated never to achieve his ambition of winning a championship with Ferrari.
What about Hamilton?
A reflective Hamilton ponders his Ferrari debut
Photo by: Ferrari
Is there anything approaching a pattern in this history of previous champions gunning for further glory in red? Only that Ferrari debuts can vary dramatically, even for the best of the best.
Some, like Fangio and Alonso, hit the ground running with victories. Others, like Schumacher and Vettel, needed more time to find their rhythm. And some, like Prost, faced immediate setbacks that foreshadowed greater disappointments.
Now, as Hamilton embarks on his Ferrari journey in 2025, the big question remains: will his debut be a sign of things to come?
In this article
Stefan Ehlen
Formula 1
Fernando Alonso
Michael Schumacher
Lewis Hamilton
Sebastian Vettel
Alain Prost
Juan Manuel Fangio
Ferrari
Be the first to know and subscribe for real-time news email updates on these topics
The Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, which represents Formula 1 drivers to the FIA and FOM, has selected a new director to replace Sebastian Vettel.
The four-times world champion retired from F1 at the end of 2022. The GPDA has now chosen Carlos Sainz Jnr, the same driver who replaced Vettel at Ferrari in 2021, as one of its directors.
The 30-year-old, who is the fourth-oldest driver in F1 today, will work alongside fellow director George Russell, who has been in his position since 2021.
“I am passionate about my sport and think we drivers have a responsibility to do all we can to work with the stakeholders to forward the sport in many aspects,” said Sainz in a statement. “So I’m very happy and proud to do my part by taking on the director’s role in the GPDA.”
The GPDA is also staffed by lawyer Anastasia Fowle and its chair, former driver Alexander Wurz. He said Sainz “has been an active and engaged member of the GPDA for several years and we sincerely appreciate his commitment in stepping up to this vital role.”
The drivers’ association has been at odds with the FIA lately over the governing body’s attempts to censure them for swearing. In November last year it issued a statement which criticised FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem, pointing out it has “on countless occasions, expressed its view that driver monetary fines are not appropriate for our sport.”
However the FIA shows no signs of revising its position. Last month it issued new guidelines defining an escalating series of fines for drivers in all categories who commit acts of “misconduct” such as swearing, and even threatening them with race bans and points deductions for repeated offences.
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Ben Sulayem insists he has a constructive relationship with F1 drivers, saying recently he treats them “like my sons and daughters” and is “the most accessible president ever.”
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Williams driver Carlos Sainz has replaced Sebastian Vettel as a director of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association – joining George Russell as the only two active racers involved in managing the body.
Russell was the only active member of the Formula 1 drivers’ interests organisation since four-time world champion Vettel retired at the end of 2022, when he was racing for Aston Martin.
The GPDA has been led by ex-F1 driver and double Le Mans winner Alexander Wurz as chairman since 2014, with Russell joining in 2021 – after only two seasons competing in grand prix racing.
Along with Wurz, Russell and Sainz, the GPDA’s management is completed by their fellow director Anastasia Fowle, who handles the organisation’s legal interests.
“I am passionate about my sport and think we drivers have a responsibility to do all we can to work with the stakeholders to forward the sport in many aspects,” said Sainz.
“So, I’m very happy and proud to do my part by taking on the director’s role in the GPDA.”
Sebastian Vettel
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
The GPDA was first formed back in 1961 with the aim of improving safety standards to protect drivers and motorsport event attendees in an era when racing risks were considerably higher.
It was reformed in 1994 after the deaths of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger at that year’s Imola race and has been active ever since.
In recent years it has been involved in a number of non-racing matters – such as the near drivers’ strike following the missile attack at the 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
Last year, the GPDA also called for FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem to treat drivers like adults amid the governing body’s ongoing clampdown on driver expression.
List of GPDA directors
In this article
Alex Kalinauckas
Formula 1
Sebastian Vettel
Carlos Sainz
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