Sporting Director Jonathan Wheatley was one of Red Bull’s early appointments, joining from Renault in 2006 and working with Sebastian Vettel during the team’s successful years when the German driver won four Formula One world titles. Jonathan Wheatley was asked to comment on Sebastian Vettel’s difficult period in the first half of the 2019 Formula 1 season:
“Sebastian isn’t such a tough guy as Michael Schumacher or Fernando Alonso, who has always been able to deliver top performances. Sebastian is a driver who has to feel the unconditional support/warmth. He had that at Red Bull. At Ferrari probably not. Sebastian is a very intelligent, sensitive and warm-hearted person. This can be seen in how loving he is to his wife and children. Or the fantastic speech he gave in honour of the late race director Charlie Whiting.” – Jonathan Wheatley explained.
However, Dr Helmut Marko thinks Sebastian Vettel needs to “change the team” he drives for in order to get his Formula 1 career back on track. The German, who is nominally Ferrari’s number 1 driver, has lost the crucial backing of the Italian media after Silverstone: “At Red Bull, he hardly made any mistakes,” noted the energy drink outfit’s new star Max Verstappen. “You do not forget how to drive. So why does this stuff keep happening to him over and over again at Ferrari?”
Marko, the Red Bull driver manager who brought the German into F1 and hosted his four world championships, also thinks it is a crisis of confidence for Sebastian Vettel: “You make mistakes when you are no longer sure of yourself,” he told Auto Bild. “It happens in the subconscious.”
Sebastian Vettel has a contract for 2020 with the Maranello team, but that has not stopped speculation that he might either quit F1 or even return to Red Bull.
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