LUKE SKYWALKER, George Bailey, Maverick, Neo, Captain America… even Bill and Ted. It’s a trope of Hollywood screenwriting that at some point the hero is sorely tested, plunged into a transformative ordeal – and then, from the depths of despair, they rise again to be triumphant. For Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari, though, the final act in the drama didn’t conform to this Aristotlean ideal.
The story of Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari was one of a professional relationship undercut by, as ever with Maranello, a strong element of passion. The relationship had moments of great exaltation and bitter disappointments, quickly reaching its first victories and slowly fading towards a divorce that wasn’t without controversy. Inhabiting the story was a driver with a strong personality and a team with a complicated dynamic, constantly under powerful spotlights which amplified any success but mercilessly exposed any perceived shortcomings.
Few gestures are as potently evocative as Sebastian’s first appearance at the wheel of a Ferrari, testing an F2012 nine days after the announcement, on 20 November 2014, that he would be forsaking Red Bull for a new life at Maranello. He arrived at Fiorano, Ferrari’s test track, with a plain white helmet upon which was written:
