We will do it again and again: Sebastian Vettel

Q: Can we see a hat-trick of titles? Only two drivers, Michael Schumacher and Juan Manuel Fangio, have won more than two on the trot.
A: Yes, of course. I was pretty surprised by what Stirling Moss said (Moss had compared Vettel to a modern-day Fangio in one of his interviews). It’s a very big honour when he mentions me in the same league as Fangio. I’m not a specialist when it comes to the history of Formula One but I’ve obviously heard about how special Fangio was.

Q: What will be your target for this season?
A: We will do it again. Obviously, we had a great season in 2011 but, to be honest, you don’t start the season expecting you’ll have a similar run again. We know how special it was and we really enjoyed it. We know how hard it is to be that consistent. The target is to repeat our success and try to give it everything.

Q: There will be six world champions in the fray this season. Will it be one of the toughest seasons in your career?
A: There are some big opponents out there. Lewis (Hamilton) is going to be pushing hard. Jenson (Button) had a great 2011. You can’t rule out Fernando (Alonso) because he is a world-class driver and it will be interesting to see how Kimi (Raikkonen) fares on return. If asked to single out the strongest rival to (Mark) Webber and me, I’d say probably Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton.

Q: Are you happy with how the test session went for Red Bull?
A: I’m happy with the progress we’ve made. I think we managed to get a great deal done. We’ve managed to tick most of the boxes that we wanted.

Q: What do you make of the car at your disposal?
A: The first time I jumped into the car for the seat fit — checking the position, checking your pedals, see if everything works — I felt extremely comfortable. So it didn’t take too long to get accustomed to it. In the past, we had cars that were a little bit here or there but the RB8 was pretty straightforward, so we hope it continues that way. Some late aerodynamic tweaking in official testing — particularly an exhaust moved as far forward as possible — has given us speed advantage.

Q: Do you think Ferrari might not pose a challenge early in the season?
A: There have been reports of them not posing a challenge in the early stages of the season because things didn’t go well for them during testing. I hope it is not true that Ferrari is going to suffer because of what happened in the beginning of the season.
McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh has said that going by the test result, no one looks dominant this season.

Q: How would you react to those comments, especially since Red Bull had dominated the last season?
A: I hope he’s wrong. Unlike other sports, in Formula One we all start from zero. Everyone has the same chance and we are all building new cars. So, until we really put them on track to race each other, we don’t really know. But I’m as confident as I can be at this point.

Q: What have you named your car?
A: Abbey. Initially, we thought of naming it ‘Everybody’s Wife’. But we binned the idea since we could have been asked to explain what it means. Also, one of our guys felt it might not be sexy.