The four-time F1 champ𝕴ion had criticised the strategy of his former team, Ferrari, where he underwhelmed and failed to add to th💝e tally of titles he had won at Red Bull.

He memorably complained that Ferrari’s instructions at Silverstone in 2020 “didn't make any sense”🦹.

✤So when he swapped red for green for the 2021 season, Vettel’s arrival required the strategists at Aston Martin to swift♏ly forge a bond.

“Well you know, when he first arrives, you know, he's coming to the te✃am, you know, he's going to be there for testing,” said Bernie Collins, Vettel’s strategist in that season, ♔to Beyond the Grid. 

“Andꦓ obviously as a strategist, I didn't go to testing and you d♒on't immediately start to build a relationship.

“ And then you're trying to go through some races that you've done in the past and start him understanding how we make calls on things, why we make calls and things, how♛ we build the tyre model, how we form our strategy, how we interact with the media, all 🍷these things.

“So it was very📖 daunting, know𒈔ing that he has been so critical in the past. 

“Even in the strategy meetings still, he would ask a lot of questions – very on top of wha෴t's going on. Really wantedꦕ to understand the plans. 

“It did feel🎐 a bit of a spotlight on strategy in that momen💃t, just because you wanted to get off on the right foot. 

“It was very important to start off on the right foot. And, you know, we did we did that 𝔍pretty successfully, I think.

“🦋And he was definitely a lot kinder in person than what I expected. And maybe that was just expecta🥃tion managed. But, you know, the relationship was really great.”

Collins pointed out Vettel’s key traits as a driver: “Two things: he had very good underst♌anding of what you're trying to achieve and why it m♊ight or might not work. And he had a very good memory for what had happened in the past. 

“He would often have gone through some previous races, and he'd sa🧸y, ‘oh, what about like in, I don't know, like 2010?’ 

“I was like, ‘I've not looked that far back’. So theꦬn you'd have to go and look at that one.

“You know, a lot of t൲he great drivers, which Sebastian did, could ꦇreally build a picture of what was going on around them and what you were trying to achieve as a strategy so he could imagine, you know, the lines that we have on the paper as it was happening in real life.

“He would always communicate through his race engineer, but he would always be ꦉdiscussing what was happening in the strategy. 

“And you hear it a lot from those drivers that are fit to watch a TV screen and say ‘so-and-so has pitted. I've seen them come in the ꦉpattern on the TV. 

“♏I know what's going to happen next’ – and they're building the image ღof what it's looking like.”

Vettel spent two years at Aston Martin💧 - finishing 12th in the F1 standings in both - before announcing his shock retirement a year ago.

Collins, meanwhile, can now be found on Sky Sports’ F1 broadcasts sharing her knowledge of racꩵe strategy.