Sebastian Vettel ditched flights and drove himself to all but two of the European races in his final Formula One season in a bid to lower his carbon footprint.
Vettel, a four-time champion and third on the all-time grand prix winners’ list, became known for his environmental activism in the final years of his F1 career.
Last year he admitted climate change had made him question the morality of his F1 job and whether travelling the world to race cars was the right thing to do.
Vettel retired at the end of 2022 and has now revealed he travelled from his home in Switzerland to two events in Italy and races in Spain, Monaco, Austria, France, Belgium and the Netherlands by car rather than by plane.
Speaking to Red Bull’s official website, Vettel said: “A few years ago, I started measuring my carbon footprint. I wrote down every car kilometer, every flight, every overnight stay.
“Seeing this figure compared to that of the average consumer knocked my socks off. After that, I took measures to get the value down.
“Most of the reduction was cutting out flights. Except for Silverstone and Budapest, I traveled to all the European races by car last season.”
Vettel said it felt like a natural step in line with the other things he had started doing in his own life.
“I don’t want to dictate to anyone or make myself out to be an angel, but that’s how I started with myself.
“It didn’t feel like going without, but rather as completely logical — like all the other smaller ones that I had taken in parallel. I felt very satisfied.”
During the pandemic, the German driver opened up a bee farm as part of a sustainability project, and when racing returned he made headlines for joining volunteers at Silverstone to pick up litter left by fans at the 2021 British Grand Prix.
In 2022 Vettel drove Nigel Mansell’s 1992 title-winning Williams car at the same circuit, using carbon-neutral fuels, something he plans to continue doing in show runs in future.
Vettel said he did not miss flying in the way he first thought he might.
“As a teenager, your driver’s license was your ticket to freedom. In motorsport, I used to drive a lot at first and soon got tired of driving long distances on the road. That’s how the plane came into play, and later the private plane, because the time savings were extreme. But the step back felt good. Plan things better, take things into your own hands.
“I couldn’t have sailed to Australia, otherwise I would have missed the race, or at least the one that followed. But whenever I could, I enjoyed being back on land and seeing things I would have missed on a plane. I noticed that the supposed loss of time is not actually a loss.”