Revealed: What Sebastian Vettel said after he ‘irritated’ big Aston Martin bosses

Aston Martin driver Sebastian Vettel looking pensive in a press conference. Mexico October 2022

Aston Martin’s former communications chief has opened up on how Sebastian Vettel “irritated” senior staff at the team in his final year as an F1 driver.

Vettel retired from Formula 1 at the conclusion of the 2022 season, and Aston Martin’s former communications chief Matt Bishop has revealed how the four-time F1 World Champion’s outspoken views irritated senior management at the Silverstone-based squad.

Matt Bishop: Sebastian Vettel’s ‘fearlessness’ pleased fans, irritated senior staff

Writing in his column for Motor Sport Magazine, Bishop recounted the story of the final months of Vettel’s F1 career – the German driver having been the lead driver at the Aston Martin squad for whom Bishop worked as head of communications.

Bishop worked directly alongside Vettel for the 2021 and ’22 seasons, and wrote in his column about the environmental and social causes Vettel had chosen to highlight by using his visibility as a prominent F1 World Champion.

Casting back to remember Vettel creating a ‘bee hotel’ at the Red Bull Ring at the 2021 Styrian Grand Prix, his efforts to work with volunteers to clean the Silverstone grandstands after that year’s British Grand Prix, and his wearing of rainbow-coloured sneakers and a T-shirt emblazoned with #SameLove at the Hungarian Grand Prix as a mild protest of the country’s anti-LGTQ legislation, Bishop revealed how his willingness to speak out on matters of human rights, equality, and inclusion had started to get him in hot water.

“As the months went by, [Vettel] continued to speak out in support of what he saw as humankind’s collective global responsibility to address the climate crisis, doing so with increasing regularity, vehemence, and fearlessness,” Bishop wrote.

“With the result that he began to irritate the very most senior people at Aston Martin, even though what he said tended to please most journalists and fans. ‘I don’t care,’ he said when he learned of his big bosses’ disquiet. ‘I must do what’s right.’

Bishop also branded Vettel “one of the most impressive people whom I have ever had the pleasure and honour to know, whether that be inside or outside F1” as he detailed the story of the approach to Aston Martin by a “deeply depressed” young man. Vettel, upon finding out about this, spoke with the man via Zoom for over 20 minutes in a bid to help with this person’s mental and emotional recovery.

Vettel later hand-wrote the man a four-page letter, with Bishop being tasked to ensure it reached him, with the communications chief revealing “the tenderness and beauty of Seb’s prose brought me to tears. There are many other examples of his remarkable generosity and sensitivity: too many to mention, in fact.”

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Sebastian Vettel’s reluctance to race in Saudi Arabia revealed

Bishop also revealed the suddenness of Vettel’s decision to announce his retirement from F1 at the 2022 Hungarian Grand Prix, with only 24 hours notice that such an announcement was coming.

It led to a mad scramble to get everything in place for Aston Martin’s media strategy for that weekend but, speaking with retrospect from two years later, Bishop said a comment from Vettel regarding the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix was probably all the clues he needed that such an announcement might come.

Vettel had missed the 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix due to having tested positive for COVID-19, and rumours had swirled the German driver had pulled a sickie to avoid racing in the country he had previously expressed misgivings about. Was his illness genuine? Bishop says it was.

“Two weeks later, in Melbourne, he was back,” he wrote.

“On the Thursday before the Australian Grand Prix, in the Albert Park paddock, I gave him his comms/PR briefing, as was my habit on the Thursday before every grand prix. We discussed media matters of moment, including his not having raced in Jeddah. ‘The truth is that I was ill, honestly,’ he said, ‘but I admit that I don’t like or approve of the country. So, if I was going to have to miss a race because of Covid-19, that’s probably the one I’d want to miss.’ He paused, smiled, and added, ‘I’m pretty sure I’m never going to race there again.’

This comment, Bishop says, was the moment he realised Vettel’s F1 career was likely drawing to a close, due to the following logic.

“Not only was the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix going to be a fixture on the F1 calendar for years to come, but also one of Aston Martin’s principal sponsors was Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned national oil company,” he said.

“Missing that particular race without a 24-carat excuse would henceforth therefore be impossible for any Aston Martin driver. So, axiomatically, it followed that the only way he could make sure that he would never have to race there again would be to retire from F1 at the end of the year.”

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