Vettel Confirms Contact With Mercedes

The vacant seat that will be left at Mercedes once Lewis Hamilton moves to Ferrari has many suitors. From young upstarts to veterans of the sport, almost every driver without a confirmed contract for 2025 has been speculated to be an option. One of them happens to be currently retired Sebastian Vettel who has now revealed if there is a possibility of him making an F1 return with Mercedes while speaking to Neue Zurcher Zeitung

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0:00 - Vettel Confirms Contact With Mercedes
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I'm your host Dillon Shelley and first up on Formula World:

Vettel Confirms Contact With Mercedes

Vettel started off by confirming that he and Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff have already spoken

“Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff didn’t call me, but we briefly exchanged text messages”

He then revealed why making a return to F1 wouldn’t be a problem for him

“But so far it’s not an issue for me, also because at 36 I still have all the time in the world”

“I think that I have learned and understood a lot in this one year without racing, including about myself”

He further confirmed that he isn’t committed to any project currently

“Being on the other side had a big impact on me; a lot of questions came up. So far there is no active project”

He signed off by addressing the possibility of actually returning to F1 with Mercedes

“I already said back [when I retired] that there wouldn’t be a clear no in that sense, because I believe that everything is a process”

“Maybe there will come a point at which I say: Yes, I would like to go back – when I sort it out mentally so that it suddenly makes sense again.

“But at the moment I’m doing very well without driving in Formula 1. There is no firm no, but also no firm yes”


Fast Feed

“The FIA confirms that the Compliance Officer has received a report detailing potential allegations involving certain members of its governing bodies”

“The Compliance Department is assessing these concerns, as is common practice in these matters, to ensure that due process is meticulously followed”

Defending world champion Max Verstappen pointed out that Jeddah is a “proper high speed semi street circuit, seeing less degradation on the tyres”

“It is going to be a bit warmer too compared to Bahrain, so will be interesting to see the difference in performance between all teams”

Teammate Sergio Perez added that “there is always plenty of action at this race and it could be a really tight one”

“Last year I had a great win and would love to repeat it”

Alpine’s Pierre Gasly doesn’t”expect any magic tricks for [Jeddah]”

“We won’t have any upgrades on the car but mid-term to long-term we know the direction we want to head into”

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur revealed that “the reaction of Carlos [Sainz, after not being retained beyond 2024] was more than professional”

“He said, ‘Okay, I have one year to go, I will do my best from the first corner to the last corner of the season’”

Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso explained that they “want to be a top team off-track with the development race”

Former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner revealed that team owner “Gene [Haas] wants to do it his way” [Sky F1]

“Obviously he didn’t like what I had to say. Therefore my contract wasn’t extended”


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