Vettel ’massively overrated’ - Irvine

Former Ferrari driver Eddie Irvine thinks Sebastian Vettel is "massively overrated".

German Vettel was criticised on all sides for his performance in 2018, having failed to win the world championship despite having a car widely regarded as a match for the Mercedes.

"I think Vettel is a good driver, but as a four times world champion, I just don’t see it," Irvine, who was Michael Schumacher’s teammate until 1999, told the BBC.

"I think he is massively overrated, he’s a one-trick pony and Lewis has a much broader talent."

But 53-year-old Irvine, who made a fortune in his post-F1 days as a real estate developer, admits that he doesn’t watch the sport anymore "because it bores me".

"It’s just got safer and safer," he said. "Which is a good thing but it’s gone too far. It’s just progress, progress, progress until it’s like ’What have we ended up with here?’.

"I think we have ended up with something a bit mushy and not that interesting."

And Irvine doubts that Liberty Media will do much to fix what he thinks is broken about F1, because the American company is most focused upon monetising the sport.

"There are many things that need to change, and each thing that you change would have a knock-on effect. But the new owner has paid a lot of money for it so I don’t think they are going to take the risks to do it," he said.