Question: Who’s your hero, Seb?
Sebastian Vettel: If it comes to racing, the answer is Michael Schumacher. But when it comes to life, my father is my role model. He did a great job of bringing us all up.
Sebastian Vettel: My father used to do amateur hill-climbing in a Volkswagen Golf, and in my opinion he was very good. This was back in the 1980s and when he stopped I started. I was two years old when he bought me my first go-kart.
Question: Did you miss out on your childhood?
Sebastian Vettel: No. My parents didn’t push me to do anything I didn’t want to do and when I started no one was talking about Formula One, we had no plan.
And really my childhood was pretty normal. I played spin the bottle like everyone else, and actually I had friends at the go-kart track too. After the practice we would say ciao to our fathers and play in the dirt with toy cars.
Question: What’s the naughtiest thing you did as a kid?
Sebastian Vettel: There was an anniversary party for a Mazda dealership, the boss of which was a friend of my father. I got a bit overexcited. My friends and I found some cans of spray paint, and we sprayed all over the cars. I was nine years old, and I got a few light slaps for it.
Question: Why do you have a girlfriend when you could be making full use of the F1 groupies?
Sebastian Vettel: I was never the kind of guy to change women like his underwear. All of a sudden I had a girlfriend, I’m very happy, so that’s that.
Question: Say you become champion and retire at 35 a rich man. What do you do next?
Sebastian Vettel: Triathlon or marathon running, something like that. And for sure, if I have the chance, I would want to continue racing. As long as people believe I’m still fast enough I would want to drive.
