Alpine F1 team principal Otmar Szafnauer has revealed that Sebastian Vettel may have signed for Honda in the mid-2000s, and that his F1 career would have been very different if that had gone ahead.
Sebastian Vettel made his F1 debut at the F1 United States GP next race as a substitute for Robert Kubica who crashed at the 2007 F1 Canadian GP, and established the youngest award record in F1 history at that time.
Red Bull placed Sebastian Vettel in Toro Rosso instead of Scott Speed from the 11th round F1 Hungarian GP, and at the 2008 F1 Italian GP, the youngest pole position in F1 history at 21 years and 72 days, at 21 years and 73 days. At that time, he was the youngest winner, the youngest podium finisher, and the youngest pole-to-win.
Sebastian Vettel, who stepped up to Red Bull Racing in 2009, won four F1 world championships between 2010 and 2013. He then announced his retirement from F1 at the end of the season after stints at Ferrari and Aston Martin.
However, former Honda F1 manager Otmar Szafnauer has revealed that Sebastian Vettel has approached him and if it goes in that direction, Vettel’s career is far from an eventual success story. suggested that it was possible.
“I’ve known him since he was 18 or 19,” explained Otmar Szafnauer.
“I was at Honda Racing and had just had Gilles de Ferran as sporting director.
“Seb came up to me and said, ‘We have a two-week window…’ but he was young…I don’t remember how old he was. He said, ‘You have a two-week window.’ There’s a window, both Red Bull and BMW are out of contract, are you interested in signing me?’
“He was an unknown at the time, but I was like, ‘Oh, he’s good.'”
“So I went to Gil and said, ‘I have two weeks left to sign Sebastian Vettel,’ and he said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m keeping an eye on him.'”
“I said, ‘What do you mean you’re keeping an eye on him?’ And he said, ‘We have two weeks!'”
“We didn’t sign him anyway.”
Honda ended its third phase of F1 activities at the end of 2008.
Category: F1 / Sebastian Vettel / honda f1