Vettel drops biggest hint yet over F1 return and confirms he is ‘race ready’

Sebastian Vettel to retire from F1 at end of season

Sebastian Vettel has refused to rule out a return to the grid after retiring from Formula 1 in 2022. The four-time world champion walked away from the sport at the end of last season having failed to finish inside the top 10 of the driver’s final standings for the last three campaigns.

However, the German star, now 36, says he “can’t exclude” the possibility of coming out of retirement just yet. “I can’t say no, because that you don’t know,” Vettel told Sky Sports when asked if he would follow in the footsteps of fellow world champions Nigel Mansell, Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen by returning to the grid after announcing their retirements.

“I think it’s something that if you asked all of them, probably some of them would have said ‘no’. And some of them I don’t know, but in the end, all of them came back, so I can’t exclude it,” he added.

“It probably will depend much on when, and obviously it’s not endless, because 36 is not like, ‘yeah in 10 years’ time’. Maybe I think about it then time has passed but it will depend on the challenge, whatever, but it’s not in my head right now.

“And I’m enjoying the sort of outlook of the challenge of what to do next. It will be the way I see it, the biggest challenge for any racing driver and the biggest challenge for any sportsman, sportswoman, what do you do after?

“Because naturally you will be like 30-35, 40-45 – depending on your sport and discipline. And then what? There’s a lot of life left and life can be great even though you’re not racing, you know, the absolute limit in the fastest car in the world, but you can still do lots of great things that give you great pleasure.”

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Vettel says he has maintained his fitness during his hiatus and claims he would only have to rebuild his neck strength, in order to withstand the extreme G-forces F1 drivers face, before getting back into the driver’s seat. Although he admits that he keeps himself in shape with the sole aim of staying healthy – and not to prepare himself for a return to the grid.

When asked whether he is “race ready”, he replied: “Yeah, but because I want to, not because I’m like, come back or if somebody falls out I’m going to (step in), not because of that. But so I guess my neck is not up to speed. No, it can’t be, but everything else is pretty, pretty good, I would say.”

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