F1 | Ferrari-Vettel, maybe it's better to say goodbye a few months in advance...

"Maybe we didn't have the courage to let Charles overtake me, even if he had a different strategy and preferred to call me back to the pits to avoid it”. A real blow from Sebastian Vettel to the international media towards Ferrari at the end of today's race at Silverstone.

Even harsher words than the race contested by the German, conditioned in spite of himself by that spin he took in the meters following the start which forced him to make a comeback in the GP and ended only in twelfth place.

Unfortunately, the story between Ferrari and Vettel is deteriorating day after day, with no holds barred on both sides. In fact, the team principal Mattia Binotto replied to the German who instead defined "fair and not penalizing” the choice made by the wall towards its bishop.

A situation that certainly should and could have been avoided. The epicenter of everything, I'm sorry to say, was the media own goal committed by the Red team which had flaunted to all too many - in the weeks preceding the pandemic - the absolute conviction of wanting to continue to focus on Vettel's talent. A lie that then forced Maranello to scrambling, with Vettel who proved the team wrong in early July by admitting without any problem that he had never received any renewal proposal.

It's a real shame that this partnership ends this way, with rags flying from one side to the other. Vettel who is now a foreign body in this Ferrari. Nobody could have ever hypothesized such a scenario just a few years ago, with Seb called to Maranello as a driver of rebirth and to whom to entrust the new course that was being built and which would have had to compete for the championship with Mercedes. Unfortunately, only battles were won, but the war instead went to the grays who are continuing to unconditionally dominate the Circus scene.

It's a very strong provocation, but perhaps Ferrari and Vettel would do well to shake hands and say goodbye now without dragging a now worn-out relationship until the end of the year. The next races could continue to represent an ordeal and Vettel does not deserve it for the dedication given to a brand that he has always honored in the best way, which has become like a second skin for him. Unfortunately, Vettel will be remembered by many for his lack of clarity in some crucial moments which led him to make mistakes in recent seasons, some of which were serious.

This is history, it doesn't rain. The same one which, however, also speaks clearly in the statistics, placing him in third place in the all-time ranking of Ferrari victories (behind only two sacred monsters such as Michael Schumacher and Niki Lauda) and in fourth place ever - on a par with Alain Prost - for titles won in career. Unfortunately, the red gem was missing, which will most likely remain Seb's biggest regret. But this cannot obscure those numbers, mentioned previously, because they speak clearly and unequivocally.