The four-time world champion is not among those taking cars up the hill this weekend.
Christian Horner has explained why Sebastian Vettel is absent from this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed as Red Bull celebrates its 20th anniversary.
On Friday at Goodwood, Horner and out-going Chief Technical Officer Adrian Newey took the covers off the £ 6 million RB17 hypercar, of which only 50 will be sold.
It is designed to be a last hurrah for Newey, who will leave the team by the end of the first quarter of 2025.
At Goodwood, Red Bull is also celebrating 20 years of being in F1, with all of its cars on display, with the most iconic ones being taken up the hill by the likes of Mark Webber, David Coulthard, Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez.
However, one name missing from the roster is Vettel, who was Red Bull’s first world champion and picked up 38 victories between 2009 and 2014.
Vettel was down to be driving the 2012 RB8 in which he claimed his third world title by just three points from Fernando Alonso in the Brazil showdown, but it is instead Horner who got behind the wheel on Thursday and will do so again on Sunday.
“Sebastian Vettel was to drive one of the cars here, but he is on holiday with his family and wasn’t able to make Goodwood,” Horner told media including RacingNews365.
“So the guys suggested: ‘well, why don’t you drive?’
“I haven’t driven a single-seater since 1998 and a Formula 1 car since 1993, so I thought it was an opportunity.
“I drove with a hand clutch and a left foot brake, and it was a great honour and great privilege to drive one of these amazing cars – a championship-winning car, and so I will be Sebastian for the weekend.”
