SEBASTIAN VETTEL

'A' IS FOR AGITATOR.

- Mike Guy

"WHAT IS AN ACTIVIST?” asks Sebastian Vettel. He's scratching his scruffy face and grimacing, bristling at the accusation that he has become one. It's hard to argue against it: Over the past couple of years, even as he's struggled to find top-10 finishes with the Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team, Vettel has become the sport's loudest voice on topics many racing fans won't appreciate: civil rights, boycotting Russia, the plight of underprivileged children, the burdens placed on the Global South, and, most significantly, climate change, which he believes is linked to everything.

Certainly, Greta Thunberg is an activist, I propose.

"I don't know," he offers. "Is Greta an activist, or is she just a very concerned citizen of our planet?"

We're sitting in Aston Martin F1's paddock at the Hungaroring outside Budapest, a few days before the Hungarian Grand Prix. In the history of strange conversations with F1 champions, this is up there with an impromptu exchange I once had with Michael Schumacher in a Monaco alley, about the orange stitching on my brand-new pair of Adidas. ("How very flashy," Schumacher said, smiling. "Can I buy a pair nearby?") Except this conversation is deep, elemental. I knew a bit about Thunberg, the young Swedish firebrand who has become one of the world's foremost advocates of climate-change awareness. But I didn't anticipate that Vettel would know everything about her.