Mere hours after denying the story, Red Bull announced that Sebastian Vettel is staying with the world champion team for at least two more years.
Earlier on Tuesday, when Germany’s Sport Bild broke the news about the 25-year-old’s contract extension for 2015, Dr Helmut Marko told SID news agency: “I don’t know where this is coming from. “There’s nothing new,” he insisted. Hours later, Red Bull issued a press release announcing it is “happy to confirm” Vettel’s signing of a new deal.
Previously, Vettel was committed only until the end of 2014, so Tuesday’s news is in effect a one-year extension for 2015. Vettel’s current teammate Mark Webber only has a contract for this year.
German newspaper Welt said Vettel’s new deal will certainly include a pay increase for the German, whose current retainer of EUR 11 million pales in comparison to Ferrari number 1 Fernando Alonso’s estimated 28m. Brazilian correspondent for O Estado de S.Paulo newspaper, Livio Oricchio, admitted Tuesday’s news surprised him. “With the radical change of rules next year, I would have thought he (Vettel) would wait to see who has developed the best solutions for the complex engineering challenge,” he said.
Welt, however, quoted Dr Marko as saying: “The elements that will ensure Sebastian continues to feel comfortable with us have been created.” The German newspaper said Marko is referring to the recent contract extensions of Red Bull team boss, Christian Horner, as well as the ‘genius’ designer, Adrian Newey.
Info: GMM, Image: Red Bull Content Pool
