Summer break, Lewis Hamilton vs Sebastian Vettel: Playboy vs Family Guy. Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel are as different as fire and ice off the track.

The Formula 1 summer break is well under way with drivers taking time to rest and recuperate before the Belgian Grand Prix on August 27. One is tucking into tuna-topped pizzas, some are training hard for the rest of the season another is playing computer games at home.

Scuderia Ferrari German driver Sebastian Vettel has a low-key social media presence and so the drivers’ standings leader has no discernible footprint to follow. At the Hungaroring in-season test, he said, “As for my holidays… I haven’t done much planning, I think I’ll just be getting some rest, after all those flights!” Having completed just 40 laps in the test, it seems that some R&R is indeed the sole priority for Sebastian, just like for Kimi Raikkonen, as the “Ice Man” said in an interview in January that his ideal holiday destination would be “Home. Who needs a holiday destination?”.

On the other hand, Lewis Hamilton’s style is well known: he shares his life on social media, is blinged-up and his body emblazoned with tattoos. He is a playboy bachelor pal of fashion and music party animals. But while Hamilton is off partying, Sebastian Vettel retreats to his family home in the countryside outside Zurich. Cows moo in the nearby fields. He loves spending time in the mountains, which he prefers to the sea. Sebastian has two daughters by Hanna Prater, his childhood sweetheart, but seek confirmation of the facts and you will be reminded how closely the German guards his privacy.

Seb met his wife at school. He has old-fashioned values, doesn’t believe in social media and has been a family man from a young age, making him the absolute polar opposite of Lewis Hamilton. The German driver speaks English perfectly, half-decent Italian and a smattering of partly remembered schoolboy French. Yet he has the mind and precision of an engineer. He pores over data. Once settled on a view, he holds it stubbornly. Hence no Twitter account: “He studied every detail and for long hours.” – Red Bull’s Christian Horner said – “Seb and Lewis are chalk and cheese. Lewis is flamboyant and relies heavily on natural talent. Seb is more analytical, more Germanic in his manic obsession with detail. And what you see with Seb is that as soon as he gets a sniff of blood, as now, he can select another gear.”