When tasked with this weeks Flashback Friday I spent the week deciding on which race to cover and with 70 years of sport to sift through it can get quite difficult, that was until a bombshell announcement on Thursday morning.
Thursday morning the F1 world woke up to the announcement that one of the most beloved drivers in the history of the sport, Sebastian Vettel, was retiring from the sport.
With this announcement, my decision on what race to write about became abundantly easier, so let’s take a trip down memory lane and see where this legendary career got its start.
The year is 2007, the iPhone is releasing, George Bush was wrapping up his mess of a presidential stint, gas cost $3.07 a gallon, and F1 saw the debut of its first black driver since the inception of the sport.
The 2007 USGP held in the historic Indianapolis Motor Speedway would play host to round 7 of the F1 world championship, and saw the debut of a young prospect from Germany by the name of Sebastian Vettel.
Vettel stepped in to replace Robert Kubica in a one-off appearance for BMW Sauber following his major crash in Canada.
The race saw Rookie Lewis Hamilton take pole position with teammate Fernando Alonso rounding out the front row.
Despite the short notice, the young Vettel would put together a very solid lap to qualify P7 (not bad for a 19 year old).
The race saw not much action in the front with Hamilton leading 66 of 73 laps to take victory with the top 4 all finishing in the same place they started.
Of the 22 drivers to start the race, 17 would finish with only 8 finishing on the lead lap.
Vettel despite being passed up by Webber, would finish a mightily respectable P8 earning him his first ever point in F1.
While writing this I found it difficult to really review this race in its entirety, it wasn’t the best race ever and in all honesty was quite boring, but this article is more of an homage to the beginning of one of the greatest careers in motorsport.
As someone born in the early 2000’s I was able to grow up watching the illustrious career of Seb unfold, he was a driver that boosted my love for the sport from his dominance at Red Bull to his solid Ferrari career, Seb made us all fans.
In closing I just want to say Danke Seb, and thank you to you all for reading even if it covered a pretty boring race in the history of the sport.
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