Sebastian Vettel began his official Scuderia Ferrari career in earnest this past weekend, with the four-time World Drivers’ Champion taking to the teams’ Fiorano circuit in a 2012 F2012 car on Saturday, before spending Sunday inside the teams’ simulator acclimatizing himself to 2014’s F14 T.
Having departed Infiniti Red Bull Racing after this years’ Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Vettel admitted that he had been waiting for the day to arrive for him to be a fully-fledged Ferrari driver,
“Obviously it’s been a fantastic day to come here,” said Vettel. “I remember I’ve been here a long time ago as a little child, driving through Maranello and trying to look over the fence, so to be here officially as part of the team felt fantastic.
“The possibility to drive the car and get to know the team was a unique experience. Obviously it’s a very different colour for me, everybody is dressed in red, everything is red, but it’s really something special and I’m very much looking forward to the challenge that we took on for the next years.”
The German has memories of his childhood when he would visit the circuit in the hope to catch a glimpse of his idol Michael Schumacher driving around the track, and he saw the support from the Tifosi while driving around Fiorano himself, and insists that it will be a magical experience that he will never forget.
“Obviously, its already winter time so it was quite cold doing some laps but it was a great feeling,” said Vettel. “It is always enjoyable to be in the car and, again, looking back to the years when I was 11 or 12, trying to look over the fence and trying to see a glimpse of Michael running on the track, well, today I was the one running and saw the Tifosi around.”
“You know there are a lot of fairy tales about Ferrari and how it feels to drive a red car and in the end I can only confirm these fairy tales, it’s not just a story, it’s a true legend that exists and it feels really, really special to become part of that and to be inside the car, to see the people coming, running to the track and trying to climb the walls to see the car, so there is definitely something very magic and something that happened today which I will never forget.”
