Vettel: Aston Martin needs to be "down-to-earth" in 2022

Despite high hopes for the future, Sebastian Vettel says Aston Martin needs to stay grounded in 2022.

To enable the team to compete at the forefront of the future, team owner Lawrence Stoll has made significant investments in the team, including building a new factory and its own wind tunnel, as well as bringing in former McLaren team leader Martin Whitmarsh. In the 2021 season, Aston Martin had a poor record, finishing seventh in the constructors' standings, joining Williams, Alfa Romeo and Haas as the bottom four teams.

For the 2022 season, even with the new rules, Vettel urged the team to stay "realistic" next season.

Asked if it was possible to set goals for next year without testing the 2022 version of the car, the four-time world champion said: "No, of course, you can't give any numbers or predictions yet, I can't say right now that we want to be the fastest team and be the world champion, but if you talk to all the teams and most of them want and believe they will be in the lead, it won't work, we also have to be down-to-earth and stay realistic." ”

Vettel said the "flame is still burning" within him, and the 2022 rule change has long been seen as an opportunity to change the order of competition. The FIA also hopes that the competitive gap between teams will be narrowed by the configuration of new cars. Vettel admits that this gives new hope to all teams, but there's still a lot to be learned about how the new design will affect the race.

"It's a big problem, as I've said before, a new set of rules gives everyone hope," he said. We now have to wait a year to see how the rankings change, if everything is making positive progress, if the strength of each team is really getting closer, whether there will be more overtaking. ”