► Four-time world champion
► And 53 GP winner
► First taste of an all-new hypercar
Sebastian Vettel stepping into the cockpit once again – but this time it won’t be a Formula 1 car. Porsche has revealed the four-time F1 world champion will take the wheel of its one of its works 963 hypercars in a forthcoming test, and it marks the first time Vettel has been behind the wheel of a contemporary car since his F1 retirement. It’s clearer than ever; Vettel really is a motorsport fan that just happened to be a very good F1 driver.
The 53-time GP-winner will take the wheel of one of the Penske works 963 during a 36-hour a test at Motorland Aragón, Spain – but Vettel has already driven the car at Porsche’s R&D centre in Weissach.
R&D Centre in Weissach, he turned his first laps in the hybrid prototype: ‘I’m looking forward to testing the Porsche 963. I already got the chance to get a feel for the car during a rollout in Weissach,’ Vettel said.
‘I’ve always followed other racing series and my curiosity for endurance events encouraged me to just give it a shot. Now I’m excited about the long run in Aragon and I’m looking forward to my time behind the wheel. It’ll definitely take an adjustment and some getting used to but everyone in the team is very open and helps me.’
What’s he doing it for?
Vettel isn’t the first Formula One driver to dip into endurance racing – even his contemporaries Fernando Alonso and Nico Hulkenberg have relatively recently taken part in the WEC – and both one Le Mans at that.
So will we see Vettel at Le Mans? We can only hope, but there are no plans yet: ‘This will be a new experience for me,’ said the German. ‘We will then see what happens next in this respect – at the moment there are no further plans for the future.’