Vettel not concerned by lack of testing

Finley Crebolder

It looks like Sebastian Vettel won’t be able to get much running in his Aston Martin prior to the start of the season, but he’s not worried.

The German will be entering the 2021 season with a new team after trading the red of Ferrari for the green of the rebranded Racing Point team.

Unlike Fernando Alonso, who is joining Alpine, Vettel was unable to drive for the team in the 2020 post-season test in Abu Dhabi, and he’s’ unlikely to get much time in his new car ahead of the 2021 campaign.

Testing ahead of the new season is limited to just three days with one car, meaning that, assuming he shares duties with Lance Stroll, Vettel will get two days of running in it at the most. Nevertheless, he’s not concerned about that.

“From what I hear, at the moment there will be one test prior to the season and that will be the first time I will be in the new car,” the German said.

“[Am I] concerned? No. If it happens to be that then that’s what it is. Over the years, I think you get used to very little track time and making the most of the track time, so even if one and a half days doesn’t sound like a lot, still you can get some decent running.

“I think it’s the same for all of us and you can do a lot of stuff beforehand nowadays. I guess the key will be the preparation leading into the test and then leading to the first race.”

Carlos Sainz Sebastian Vettel
Carlos Sainz Sebastian Vettel

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Vettel is being replaced by Carlos Sainz at Ferrari, and the Spaniard has the luxury of being able to drive one of the Italian’s teams 2018 cars before the start of the season.

Aston Martin team principal Otmar Szafnauer says that that’s unfortunately not something the British team can do due to regulations.

“We… don’t have the ability to run a two-year-old car,” he said.

“[But] we’ll be doing everything we can with Seb to get him integrated into the team, do a lot of sim work with him as well, and then use the three days of testing that we have to the best of our ability to get him ready for the first race.”

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