Aston Martin will have to do without Sebastian Vettel in its ranks from next season. The German signed a two-year contract upon his arrival, but that is all. The four-time world champion announced his F1 farewell on Thursday afternoon and for Olav Mol it does not really come as a bolt from the blue.

Vettel says he no longer gets any satisfaction from driving in the premier class of motor sport. This is hardly surprising, as expectations were high when he became involved in the project in 2021. Aston Martin had successful years as Racing Point, but since the name change things have only gone downhill.

Last season Vettel showed his class by finishing second in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix and in Hungary a podium seemed in the offing until fuel issues disqualified him. His best result so far this year was sixth in Baku, but often Vettel finishes outside the top-ten and does not even survive Q1.

Future prospects for Aston Martin

Mol suspects that Vettel did not have the idea that Aston Martin cannot join at least the subtop in the short term. "I also think that Vettel has noticed that with the organisation at Aston Martin, it doesn't just work. We quickly forgot about it, but of course they tried again to copy a car," the commentator of Grand Prix Radio and Ziggo Sport told Formule1.com.

In Spain, Aston Martin introduced the AMR22-B. This car looked suspiciously like Red Bull's RB18, but in terms of performance it was still quite disappointing for Lawrence Stroll's team. That is the reason why peace has quickly been restored to the subject and why the fuss hasn't been too bad. In the first twelve races of 2022 only nineteen points were scored, fifteen by Vettel and four by Stroll.