Aston Martin’s former communications chief has opened up on how Sebastian Vettel “irritated” senior staff at the team in his final year as an F1 driver. Vettel retired from Formula 1 at the conclusion of the 2022 season, and Aston Martin’s former communications chief Matt Bishop has revealed how the four-time F1 World Champion’s outspoken views irritated senior management at the Silverstone-based squad. Writing in his column for Motor Sport Magazine, Bishop recounted the story of the final months of Vettel’s F1 career – the German driver having been the lead driver at the Aston Martin squad for whom Bishop worked as head of communications.
Bishop worked directly alongside Vettel for the 2021 and ’22 seasons, and wrote in his column about the environmental and social causes Vettel had chosen to highlight by using his visibility as a prominent F1 World Champion. Casting back to remember Vettel creating a ‘bee hotel’ at the Red Bull Ring at the 2021 Styrian Grand Prix, his efforts to work with volunteers to clean the Silverstone grandstands after that year’s British Grand Prix, and his wearing of rainbow-coloured sneakers and a T-shirt emblazoned with #SameLove at the Hungarian Grand Prix as a mild protest of the country’s anti-LGTQ legislation, Bishop revealed how his willingness to speak out on matters of human rights, equality, and inclusion had started to get him in hot water. “As the months went by, [Vettel] continued to speak out in support of wha.