Christian Horner has explained why Sebastian Vettel is absent from this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed ​​as Red Bull celebrates its 20th anniversary. On Friday at Goodwood, Horner and outgoing Technical Director Adrian Newey took the wraps off the £6m RB17 supercar, of which only 50 have been sold.

The tournament is designed as a final tribute to Newey, who will leave the team at the end of the first quarter of 2025. At Goodwood, Red Bull also celebrated 20 years in F1 with all its cars on display, with the most iconic cars driven by drivers such as Mark Webber, David Coulthard, Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez took it up the hill.

However, there is one name absent from this list: Vettel, Red Bull’s first world champion and who won 38 victories from 2009 to 2014. Vettel was tasked with driving the RB8 in 2012, the car in which he won his third world championship by just three points ahead of Fernando Alonso in a battle in Brazil, but instead it was Horner who took the wheel on Thursday. year and will continue to do so on Sunday.

“Sebastian Vettel was due to drive one of the cars here, but he was on holiday with his family and couldn’t come to Goodwood,” Horner told the media. “So the guys suggested: ‘Oh, so why don’t you drive?’ “I haven’t driven a single-seater since 1998 and a Formula 1 car since 1993, so I thought this was an opportunity. “I drive with a hand clutch and left foot brake, and it’s an honor and a privilege to drive one of these great cars – a championship car, and so I will be Sebastian throughout this week.”