Farewell dinner for Vettel was 'the best night' says Hamilton

Ahead of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, all 20 Formula 1 drivers got together to say goodbye to Sebastian Vettel. The idea came from Lewis Hamilton, who also reportedly paid for the dinner. After qualifying, the Briton spoke about the enjoyable evening.

We often see F1 drivers travelling together in groups or spending time together, but it never actually happens that all 20 drivers gather next to the track to spend time together. In Abu Dhabi, the drivers spent an evening together to, among other things, say goodbye to Vettel, who is driving his last F1 race this weekend. Hamilton told GPblog and others about the dinner.

"“I thought it was really important so that’s why I asked the group in Mexico if they’d be open to all doing a dinner to give Seb a farewell. We hadn’t had dinner for years since China and it was the best evening, we were all laughing so much, there were great, great stories.," began the seven-time world champion.

Harmony within the group

Afterwards, most of the drivers shared photos of the evening on social media. Hamilton was thanked for organising the dinner. "Seb [Vettel] is a great leader and he gave a great speech and he tried to hand down his experiences that he’s had over these years to the young guys because they’re the future. We had that photo and it’s the most harmony I think any driver group has ever had. Maybe not in history because there’s images of others from many, many years ago, but definitely in these 15 years."

The drivers enjoyed the evening so much that it was said afterwards that the dinner should happen more often. Hamilton does not think it is feasible to organise something like this regularly because of the drivers' busy schedule, but who knows, maybe the drivers will get together again in a year's time.

"Afterwards we all said let’s do it all the time. But maybe we’ll make it an annual thing here and maybe we’ll have another one in a year. But there’s also a lot we can do as a DPDA, as a united group. We have a responsibility, each and everyone of us has a great platform collectively and it’s encouraging. There’s lots of things F1 needs to push forwards action-wise, sustainability and those kinds of things, but it’s making sure we’re pushing through and doing our absolute best and maybe GPDA can have a role in that.”

Editor-in-chief Tim Kraaij reported live from Abu Dhabi for this article