F1 News: Sebastian Vettel Buys Back His Own Sidepod As Team Auctions It Off
Sebastian Vettel has just been awarded a Lifetime Achievement award by Autosport F1 and during his speech at the ceremony, the four time champion revealed that he is trying to buy his sidepod back from Aston Martin.
Vettel announced earlier this year that he would be retiring at the end of the season. Tributes started flooding in for the F1 icon in the run up to the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix as well as after his last race.
Vettel made his F1 debut in 2007 driving for Toro Rosso, now called AlphaTauri, he was later promoted to drive for Red Bull where he had his most successful years winning four championships in a row. In 2015, he announced he was moving to Ferrari and then he moved again to Aston Martin for the 2021 and 2022 seasons.
Aston Martin shared the moment of Vettel accepting his award to social media, saying:
"Well deserved, Seb. Last night, Sebastian Vettel attended the @autosport awards and accepted The 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award, recognising his incredible #F1 career and his unrivalled impact on our sport both on and off the track."
When Vettel was making his speech after being awarded the Lifetime Achievement award, he spoke about how his Aston Martin team had placed his sidepod from his 2022 F1 car up for auction. He said:
“Can you imagine the team didn’t tell me that they’re offering my sidepod for an auction?
“So I’m trying to buy it back. I’m not sure I got it,”
The Grand Prix trust had entered multiple things into the silent auction but Vettel obviously wanted the sidepod for himself. He placed a bid of $3,100 and waited to see if he was successful.
In a video shared by Motorsport.com, we could see it was later revealed that he was the highest bidder and got the sidepod back.