Sebastian Vettel's farewell: His 5 greatest races in F1!

5. Abu Dhabi GP 2010

For the first time in Formula 1 history, four drivers had arrived at the last race of the season with chances to become champion. The favourite on that occasion was Fernando Alonso in his Ferrari, who had 246 points, followed by Mark Webber (Red Bull - 238 points), Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull - 231 points), and Lewis Hamilton(McLaren - 222 points).

Vettel took pole position in Abu Dhabi and, at the start of the race, held off Hamilton's McLaren. However, Vettel's victory did not guarantee him to win the title, as Alonso could finish in a position that would favour him and, therefore, win his third world title without getting on the podium. But that wasn't what happened: the Spaniard got stuck behind Petrov's Renault at the hard-to-overtake Yas Marina Circuit, and finished only 7th, which guaranteed Sebastian Vettel's first title in the category, as the German had won the race.

 

 

 

 

 

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4. 2018 British GP

Between 2017 and 2018, Vettel claimed 10 victories with Ferrari and essayed a race against Lewis Hamilton in both seasons. But few victories have surprised as much as this one.

After years of Mercedes' dominance at Silverstone, it looked like the Ferrari SF71H would finally be able to defeat the German team. Even with Hamilton taking pole on Saturday with a lead of just 0.044 seconds to Vettel, the Mercedes duo - at the time made up of Hamilton and Bottas - were unable to beat the German on Sunday.

After the safety car came on track and a restart with only 11 laps to go, Bottas was the leader, closely followed by Vettel. The then Ferrari driver had made a pit stop and was on newer tyres than the Finn, which allowed him to overtake the Mercedes driver on lap 47 and finish the race first. A giant victory for Sebastian Vettel!

3. Malaysian GP 2015

After a bad 2014 season for Vettel (still at Red Bull) and Ferrari, the duo seemed to turn things around already at the beginning of 2015, starting the partnership that would last 6 years between the driver and the team. Vettel started second and Hamilton managed to hold on to the lead. Tyre management was a crucial factor in that race and the German's differential over his rivals - Mercedes made 3 pit stops, while Ferrari stopped Vettel only twice. After the safety car came on track, which resulted in Mercedes calling Hamilton into the pits, Vettel took the top spot and didn't start again.

An impressive victory. The newspapers at the time said: "It looked like Sebastian was a consecutive four-time Red Bull champion. He executed the race perfectly".

2. Indian GP 2013

After taking pole on Saturday with a lead of no less than 0.752 second ahead of the second-placed driver, Sunday's race was won due to the team's strategy. Knowing that the soft tyres would not last long in that 60-lap race, Red Bull decided to call Vettel into the pits on the very second lap, switching to the medium tyres. The German came back in 17th position and had to climb the grid. By the end of lap 13 he was already third and eight laps later he passed Sergio Perez's McLaren to move up to second place. With no Webber ahead of him, who abandoned with car trouble, Vettel flew down the track to clinch his four-race title with three races to spare.

1. 2008 Italian GP

The circumstances surrounding this race make it top of our list. Toro Rosso's 2008 season was one of the team's best, exceeding all expectations. At the time, the STR3 model used a Ferrari engine.

Vettel made the most of the rain that fell during the qualifying session that Saturday and took the improbable pole position for the next day's race. It was expected that even with a wet track, the German would not be able to hold off his rivals during the 53 laps of the race.

A strategy error by McLaren, who decided to call Hamilton to the pits to put on an extreme rain tyre (which did not come), helped Vettel to open the lead, as the Briton had to make an extra stop a few laps later. With that, Vettel finished the race 12.5 seconds ahead of Kovalainen, and secured the first win for any of the Red Bull teams, as not even the top team had won a race until then.