From hate to hero

All those championships and countless race wins, twirling a finger by the side of his head after that Turkey shunt in 2010 to tell us Webber was mad, Multi-21, the ruthlessness, the pathological need to win, ‘Get Mark out of the way, he’s too slow’ and other outbursts like it, the German national anthem yet again, somehow recovering from an early spin in Brazil to finish sixth and nick the title from Alonso…

And, of course, that bloody index finger. Once upon a time I hated Sebastian Vettel.

Maybe that says more about me than it does him. For a long while Formula 1 wasn’t at all enjoyable to watch and it had nothing to do with the technical regulations, the cars, the circuits, the television coverage or anything like that. Instead, it was made unbearable by how metronomically – how incessantly – the young German driver kept winning.