Sebastian Vettel Will Drive His 2011 F1 Car On The Nürburgring

Photo: Julian Finney (Getty Images)

Retired four-time F1 World Champion Sebastian Vettel is slated to reunite with the Red Bull RB7 from his 2011 title-winning campaign. The new yacht racing team owner will be doing a show run on the Nürburgring Nordschleife as a part of Red Bull Formula Nürburgring, a motorsport festival being held as an opening act to the annual 12-hour race at the legendary track.

If you weren’t an F1 fan back then and need a quick summary, Sebastian Vettel became a force of nature in 2011. Sure, he won his first championship in 2010 after a four-way title fight that went down to the wire at the inaugural Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. It was different in 2011. It wasn’t even close. Vettel won 11 out of the 19 races this season. In the other eight races, he finished second five times. Many claimed that the Adrian Newey-designed car gifted him that championship, but his teammate Mark Webber only won a single race and finished third in the points standings. Again, Vettel was a force of nature.

Vettel will be joined at the event by Daniel Ricciardo, who will be driving the Red Bull RB8 from the 2012 season. Vettel’s RB7 will run on synthetic fuel during the event as he has promised never to drive a conventionally-fueled race car again. The exhibition will be the first time that F1 cars will circle the Nordschleife since 2013, when Michael Schumacher drove a Mercedes F1 car on the 12.9-mile circuit.

The show run will offer spectators at the track and fans worldwide the opportunity to glimpse back at Vettel’s peak a decade ago briefly and to see a modern F1 car drive around a historic circuit that hasn’t hosted a Grand Prix since 1976.