Q&A with Sebastian Vettel

You’ve had four years of great success but it’s a new ball game this year. Do the rule changes make you apprehensive at all?

I think it’s obviously a big change for all the team including ourselves. The last couple of years we knew sort of what to expect which is very different this year, therefore it’s difficult to have any sort of expectations. The most important things is once we get going is to understand the car, understand what it means and then hopefully build on that. Therefore expectations are fairly low, but once you realise you have a good car (hopefully!) you want to make sure you race in the same area that you did in the last years.

How prepared do you feel for this season?

You always try to prepare as much as you can. This year, with all the new challenges, it’s difficult to prepare for the unknown, but you try to understand as much as possible before you start, so at the moment it might be a bit more guess work, rather than knowing what is coming as we haven’t driven with the engine or new car, so we try to prepare as much as we can, then we’ll find out more after the first couple of tests and races.

Do you think drivers will have to significantly alter their driving style this year to deal with the regulations? Are there many more things for the driver to deal with in the car?

Because of the big changes the drivers will have to adapt their driving style, you will have to look after the car and the fuel situation, so it might be a little bit different in the races compared to what we are used to. I think everyone will get used to it, but it will take some time to adapt. If you look across the weekend it will require the driver to adapt to what needs to be done. In qualifying you will try to go as fast as possible whereas in the race, depending on the situation of who you are racing and where you are in the race, you will have to save fuel, prepare and attack maybe laps in advance, so we will see.

How long will it take for the racing to settle down this year?

Being a part of the team you realise how big the changes are that we will face for this season. And as always, the bigger the changes the more time for everyone – drivers, engineers, people in the factory – to adapt, so we will probably see more retirements than we are used to. We understood the cars more in the past and now everything is new so I think mistakes will happen for everyone, the question is who makes the least mistakes and the target is not to make the same mistake twice, but we all have to learn and there will be things happening I am sure; it’s normal after such a change.

Only Michael Schumacher has won five titles in a row, and that was with a relatively stable set of regulations. Do you believe it’s possible to match that achievement?

I think generally everything is possible. We have been on a credible run winning the last four titles consecutively, we will try to do it again to make it five, but at the moment expectations are low as we don’t know what’s coming. We’ve had a good run but now it’s a blank sheet of paper, so we will have to wait and see.

You and Daniel are both Red Bull athletes and were part of the Junior Programme, how well do you know him?

I’m looking forward to racing against Dan in the same team. Obviously we have a little bit of a similar back ground with us both coming from the Red Bull family early on in our career. It’s nice for him to get the chance and I’m sure he will try his best to give me a hard time. I know him a little bit and will get to know him a lot more this year.

Will having a new team mate have any affect for you this season?

It doesn’t change that much – it’s a different name and a different guy, but the team is used to working with different drivers. Surely the first year might be difficult for him and the team just to get to know each other, so I may have an advantage there, but he’s very talented and bright and I’m sure he will adapt quickly and the team will help him, so in the end we are the strongest team that we can be.

This is the team’s 10th season, what’s been your greatest moment from your time with the team?

I have had five seasons with Red Bull, four where we won the Championship but also the first one was pretty credible. It’s not fair to pick a best moment, there are a few that stand out: the first win in China, the weather was miserable but we got a one two finish, it was the first win for the team and only my second and if you look back it was incredible, everyone was jumping up and down for hours and it was really cool. Winning the first time in Monaco with Mark was great, I was second but Monaco GP is something is very special. I remember everyone jumped in the pool just after. Winning the Championship in Abu Dhabi was very special and sealing the Championship each year, no matter where we were we had a good time afterwards, in Abu Dhabi or in a karaoke bar in Japan. It was always special.

How exciting was it seeing your car being built today?

You come back after the break and you get to meet everyone again and you get to see the new car. The car looks very different so there’s a lot going on – the technology behind it is very complex – so it’s hard for the engineers to understand everything, as everything is linked. For the drivers it’s even harder as we haven’t been to school for as long! It’s fascinating to see how it works and how it comes together. It’s a lot of work for the mechanics and for everyone that works on the car, it’s a big challenge and hard to predict but we will see when we get to the first race.

Tell us why you picked Number 5 as your number for this year?

I’m happy to go into the season with No 1, as it means we won the Championship the year before. I picked number 5 very simply as the first time I won the Championship I had number five on the car. Five has been very successful in F1; Nigel won the Championship and Michael won the Championship with 5 and I have good memories of it on my go-kart I had a good season in 2001, when I had a lot of wins.