Sebastian Vettel will return to the wheel of his championship-winning Red Bull RB7 along side his ex-teammate Daniel Ricardo and will drive on the legendary Nurburgring Nordschleife course later this year. The four-time world champion, who retired from F1 at the conclusion of last season after a 16-year career, will drive his 2011 RB7 again on September 9 at the Red Bull Formula Nurburgring event. The RB7 will use E-fuels for its demonstration run on the Nordschleife's 22.6km course. At last year's British Grand Prix, Vettel drove a lap of Silverstone in Nigel Mansell's William FW 14B championship car while using carbon-neutral fuel. This run is timed to coincide with Daniel Ricciardo's planned lap of the Nordschleife in a Red Bull RB8 on the same weekend as the Nurburgring 12 Hours. Sebastian Vettela and Daniel Ricciardo, who raced together for RedBull in 2014, won three races and finished on the podium 12 times with their Red Bull RB10 that season.
Vettel, who retired at the conclusion of the 2012 season, also posted a statement on his Instagram in German announcing the news. He couldn't wait to go back to one of the toughest tracks in the world, "Grüne Hölle," or "Green Hell."
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F1: Sebastian Vettel After Retirement
Sebastian Vettel has been quite vocal about the dire consequences of climate change and the urgent need to protect the environment. The German is doing his bit to protect the earth by taking part in environmental initiatives like "Race without Trace" and "Save the Bees."
Vettel has been so committed to this cause since quitting Formula One that he has created his own website. This website details his participation in numerous events and the firms he endorses that help achieve this aim.
The Nordschleife
Following multiple accidents, including one that critically wounded Niki Lauda in 1976, the F1 German Grand Prix was moved off of the Nordschleife. The Grand Prix circuit at Nürburgring, constructed in 1984, now hosts the event.
For obvious reasons, the original layout of the Nordschleife could never have been made safe for drivers. The Nürburgring's administration and race organisers were not willing to pay the astronomical cost of hiring the tens of thousands of marshals required for a Grand Prix, which is up to six times as many as most other circuits required, so it was clear that the entire track would need to be redesigned if Formula One were to return there.
The truncated Nordschleife is still open for racing, testing, and general public usage. Media outlets and automakers have long looked to Nordschleife lap times as a proxy for a vehicle's overall performance. Commonly employed as a proxy for the car's overall performance, lap timings allow for direct comparisons across vehicles of wildly different makes and eras. The whole length of the track and a more conventional, somewhat abbreviated configuration have both had their respective times recorded since 2019. Expert test drivers who are familiar with the Nordschleife track operate the test vehicles, which are often modified versions of production cars.
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