"As a driver, your target is always to be with the most competitive team possible"
About this Quote
The phrasing is revealingly pragmatic. Not "dream" or "hope" - "target" belongs to the language of contracts, performance clauses, and career management. Vettel is talking like a veteran employee in a brutally specialized industry where loyalty is sentimental and competitiveness is structural. The subtext is almost blunt: you can drive the wheels off a midfield car and still be remembered as a footnote.
Context sharpens the edge. Vettel rose with Red Bull when that organization hit a technical and operational peak, then jumped to Ferrari chasing the sport's most mythic winning platform, only to collide with the reality that heritage doesn't equal advantage. In that light, the line reads as both self-justification and hard-won advice to younger drivers: your prime years are finite, and the wrong garage can waste them.
There's also a quiet critique of the sport's fairness baked in. By treating team selection as the primary "target", Vettel admits what fans often resist: championships are less a pure meritocracy than a convergence of budget, leadership, aerodynamics, and timing. It works because it's unsentimental - a clean sentence that punctures the romance without killing it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Sports |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Vettel, Sebastian. (2026, January 17). As a driver, your target is always to be with the most competitive team possible. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/as-a-driver-your-target-is-always-to-be-with-the-81450/
Chicago Style
Vettel, Sebastian. "As a driver, your target is always to be with the most competitive team possible." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/as-a-driver-your-target-is-always-to-be-with-the-81450/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"As a driver, your target is always to be with the most competitive team possible." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/as-a-driver-your-target-is-always-to-be-with-the-81450/. Accessed 22 Feb. 2026.










