Now at 31-years of age Vettel knows little other than a life mixed with the inevitable glare of Formula 1 and the self-imposed exile of his private life, “Obviously F1 is a big part of my life but it is not the most important thing. It is not who I am, it is what I do.
They are linked but it is important there is a lot of time where it doesn’t define who I am.”“I don’t feel special because of what I do for a job. It is part of me, my identity but it would be the wrong answer if I asked myself: ‘Who are you?’ and I said: ‘I am an F1 driver.’ I am a lot of other things as well. It doesn’t define me as a person.
”Vettel lives in Switzerland with Hanna Prater with whom he has two daughters, Emilie (4) and Matilda (3) who are seldom at the races and when they do attend they avoid the paddock and sit in the stands.“I am happy to do things that people think are boring but for me they are not, being at home, mowing the lawn. I cook, not so good, but from time to time. I do the school run, I go shopping, I take the metro and the bus.”
“I am sportsman, I am not celebrity. So when I go somewhere and somebody recognises me I think they are interested in sport and not in how I do my hair, or which shoes I am wearing or that bollocks.”