17/11/2022
NEWS STORY
As Sebastian Vettel prepares for his final F1 race, Lewis Hamilton channels his inner Arnie and suggests: "You'll be back!"
This weekend, four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel hangs up his helmet after 299 Grands Prix.
Sitting alongside him at today's official press conference was, among others, Lewis Hamilton, who is on the verge of contesting his 200th Grand Prix with Mercedes, the most races any driver has contested with the same team.
As the sport prepares to say auf wiedersehen to Vettel, amidst speculation over how the German might spend his time from now on, Hamilton, who shows no sign of stopping, isn't convinced his great rival won't be tempted to return.
"I was just sitting here thinking most drivers are coming back, like he's coming back," said Hamilton. "You're probably going to come back.
"We're seeing other drivers coming back, so, I'm sitting here kind of accepting... yes, it's your last race, but you'll be back.
"Formula 1 has a way of sucking you back in, we've noticed that from so many other drivers," smiled the Briton.
Asked if was definitely hanging up his helmet for good or perhaps considering other forms of racing, Vettel admitted: "I think you naturally do look at other stuff, I don't know yet is the answer.
"I quite look forward to the idea of nothing at first and then see what it does to me," he added. "There's lots of other things in my head as well, other interests and ideas outside racing.
"But yeah, obviously I've done this for so long and it's been central to my life, so, it will be difficult to say that I'm not going to miss it, but how much and whether then I start to look at something else, we'll see how it goes.
"For some reason, I like rallying, but I can see it's a major challenge, because it's so different to what we do in let's say classic circuit racing."
Check out our Thursday gallery from Yas Marina here.