Bernie Collins, a former race strategist and current Sky Sports F1 pundit, provided analysis of Sebastian Vettel’s time at Aston Martin and praised his unwavering dedication to being the best in the business.
At the beginning of the 2021 season, four-time world champion Vettel joined Aston Martin after learning that his contract with Ferrari would not be renewed after 2020.
On the Beyond the Grid podcast, former race strategist Collins talked about how uncomfortable he was with Vettel’s presence at the team and his driving and work attitude.
Vettel and I had a wonderful friendship.
“Well, you know, he’s coming to the team, you know, and he’s going to be there for testing,” Collins remarked. As a strategist, I obviously didn’t take a test, and developing a relationship takes time.
Knowing that he had been so critical in the past made it really scary. He would be quite perceptive and ask a lot of questions, even during strategy meetings. sincerely wished to comprehend the plans. In that instant, there seemed to be a slight emphasis on strategy since you wanted to start off strong.
And in person, he was undoubtedly much gentler than I had anticipated. Perhaps that was just a case of expectations being handled. However, the relationship was truly wonderful.
Unquestionably committed to Vettel
Collins demonstrated his deep knowledge of the history of the sport by delving into the two elements that led to Vettel’s success.
Collins remarked, “Two things.” He had a thorough comprehension of your goals and the reasons why they might or might not be successful. And he recalled prior events with remarkable clarity.
He would frequently review past races and remark, “Oh, what about, like, in, I don’t know, like 2010?'” “I haven’t looked that far back,” I thought to myself. You would then need to go look at that one.
As you can imagine, many excellent drivers—like Sebastian—were able to vividly visualize their surroundings and the goals of their strategies, enabling them to envision the lines drawn on paper as they would have occurred in real life.
