#I never do rants but 2014 seb is special to me

[theagenes]

This is a late night rant about 2014 Sebastian Vettel, not my usual type of content at all but I had to get it out of my system. 🎀

I would have not particularly written this but I heard a comment about Sebastian's 2014 season and it bugged me, then I saw something very similar later that day and just thought about doing this.

Then what is it about ? Well initially, what I heard came from a commentator discussing George Russel and Lewis Hamilton's dynamic at Mercedes, and how, in their first moment driving against one another, the younger one tended to force the elder into driving a bit more desperately : to commit mistakes to try and beat their younger teammate. To this, the commentator also put the example of 2014 Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo, which the former had seen as a threat, and as a result, had been pressured into driving poorly in 2014.

The problem I have with this is that it just highlights how little people know, and on the contrary, how much people assume, about Sebastian's 2014 season — which, arguably, is probably one of his most overlooked. It is not so much that he had a poor season that year, more than why — and you will find that it is the combinaison of many factors, most of them I thought people knew very well, but as it turns out, not so much.

Why was it such a terrible season for him then ?

First things first, I'd like to put this into perspective : we view 2014 as an “awful” season for him, if not by sheer, automatic contrast to 2013. It's not easy to have both your best and worst season follow each other in a 2 years' spawn : is it really though— his worst season ? Because it's not. Sebastian finished 5th in the driver championship that year, and stepped on a few podiums — some of them he even shared with his teammate Daniel Ricciardo.

Here he is in Singapore 2014, lifting his trophy at venue which has never failed him. 🥸

Now 5th isn't so bad, especially considering there were more drivers competing in the championship, as well as a fiercer competition. Why does it stick in our minds as such a forgettable season for him then ? Well, as we saw, 2013 was his most dominant form ever, and there is nothing more humiliating than losing a Grand Prix with the “ 1 ” sticker branded onto your every belonging : car, caps, race suit, garage ; right next to your own name.

But once that this a priori is out of the way, you will find that his 2014 season – although nowhere near his last four championship-winning years – was not simply Sebastian making silly mistakes, in the heap of the moment or born out of a rage to prove himself, because he felt threatened by his new teammate.

There are reasons behind 2014, and there are numerous.

An obvious reason, although going slightly in the same direction than what the commentator was saying – without ever reaching the same conclusion though – was that the 2014 season was all about changes for Sebastian : new regulations, new engines, new cars, new teammate : new dynamic. A change to which he adapted pretty poorly, that's undeniable, but which does not warrant for such a drastic drop of performance — when compared to 2013 or 2011, his most dominant years, but even 2012, one of the hardest fought championship he ever won, or 2010 or 2009, two championships to which he teethed and clawed at, for two very different outcomes. What I mean is that you simply do not go from breaking and setting new, unheard-of records (still unbroken, as I write this), winning 13 races out of 19, and only missing out on 2 podium finishes in an entire season, to climbing on the top of a few, scarce podiums the very next year — or at least, not without a justification.

This justification, you will find, comes into a much simpler, intertwined reason than you might think. To put it very simply, I would say “Ferrari” on one side, and “Michael Schumacher” on the other. Don't forget where we stand, and where we are : this is 2014. A few month prior, Michael Schumacher, Sebastian's greatest hero, friend and counsellor, had been drastically injured in a skying accident.

This might seem a bit foreign to us nowadays, and although we all know about his accident, do we always remember the precise date ? December 29 2013, during the winter break and somehow, both at the same time, a moment of joy and celebration for Sebastian, as well as sorrow and grief. How do you celebrate your greatest achievement in the sport of your dream, when a primordial component of this very childhood dream, your hero, fights for his life in a remote hospital ? And it's no well-hidden secret that Michael's accident dealt a terrible blow to Sebastian's mental health — he talked about it himself in interviews saying that the period which followed was one of the toughest of his life. The 2014 season cannot be extracted from its context, and the driver that got into his car this year was a man grieving, constantly ; persistently.

The third reason is very much linked to the second, as Michael Schumacher had a great impact over Sebastian's dream of ever driving shed in red. 2014 is also a turning point in Sebastian's career : both a pivot and a fulcrum, to later become an unsteady keystone. The thing is, the discussions over Sebastian ever joining Red Bull had started as early as 2008, although at this time, he had chosen to commit to Red Bull. The movement from Red Bull to Ferrari did not happen in one day, and it surely did not pop into Sebastian's mind over the spawn of a few month. It must have been there for years, simmering until he finally crossed the threshold and took a step. A move he had to make without any word of advise from the person who had made him want to join Ferrari in the first place.

The 2014 season was not so much his last year with Red Bull, more than a springboard-year before his first season with Ferrari. It was never going to be a year where Sebastian would fight for a championship, not even for wins or podiums : on the contrary, not winning with Red Bull was the only remaining necessity. His contract with Red Bull was set until the 2015-2016 season, and as we've seen in the past, a driver leaving his team is always legally managed by a contract : in order for this to happen, there has to be a clause which can break their pre-existing contract. It was the case with Daniel Ricciardo last year (2022) who was kindly thanked by McLaren in exchange of a good sum of money : that was the mandatory loophole in the contract for it to work. Similarly with Sebastian in 2014, the loophole in his contract was all about championship points. Helmut Marko talked about it after Sebastian's move from one team to the other, saying that this transaction had not came as a backstab at all, simply because it had been done in full knowledge of their team.

What do we think about it, as a whole ? Of course, I have no purpose to cast a shadow on Daniel Ricciardo's very good season in 2014 : his victories were his and he didn't rob anyone of them, nor his podiums. What I am trying to say is that there is no correlation between those two chains of event : in the same way that Sebastian losing did not help Daniel winning, Daniel winning did not make Sebastian lose. I don't think this 2014 season should be summed up as Sebastian feeling pressured by a younger teammate into making mistakes after mistakes — all the more considering his sheer streak of unluckiness and the unavoidable DNF's, engine and car failures he had no role into. Wouldn't it be pretty simplist, to link Daniel's victories to Sebastian, and wouldn't it take a bit from them ? I sincerely think that they are not linked, and that his – arguably weaker, although 5th position in the championship is no small feat if it is regarded as your very worst, considering most drivers never even win a Grand Prix, let alone make it to the top 5 of the WDC – 2014 season was about something else entirely.

Perhaps that it was less about being beaten by a teammate than saying farewell to a former team in the smoothest way possible ; for once losing sight of the championship to achieve something bigger, to try and reach for a childhood dream.

Pictures are from Motorsport Images (cr: Vettel 2014 Portrait) / Alfred Guillou - Adieu ! / - Lora Mathis - If There's A Way Out I'lI Take It / Edward John Poynter - The corner of the villa / Franz Ludwig Catel - Porch of a Church in a lunar landscape / The Guardian / Witold Pruszkowki - Falling Star / Patrick Gale - Notes from an exhibition, p.36 / Sebastian Vettel for the Daily Telegraph / Dr Helmut Marko for Sky Sports / Johan Christian Dahl - View of Dresden by Moonlight.

#web weaving #I say web weaving when really it's a RANT #‎^•ﻌ•^ฅWebweaving #sorry I got upset #I never do rants but 2014 seb is special to me #like people are SO quick to throw him under the bus #when will people get that 2014 was such a rough season for him but not for the reason they think :') #i will defend him with my life #sebastian vettel #f1 #formula 1 #red bull racing #red bull seb #red bull f1 #daniel ricciardo #red bull daniel