Sebastian Vettel: Fernando Alonso needs no advice when joining Aston Martin

Vettel, a four-time F1 world champion is retiring at the end of 2022 and double world champion, Alonso, is leaving Alpine to replace the German at Aston Martin.

In an interview with the Aston Martin F1 Team official website, Vettel was asked if he had any advice for the 41-year-old Alonso about joining the team, he replied: "Fernando doesn't need any advice," he said. "I'm not sure he's taking any advice, but he doesn't need it anyway.

"He's been around for so long and seen so much - he'll be fine."

The 35-year-old Vettel admitted, when asked, that his two toughest rivals in F1 were Alonso and Lewis Hamilton.

"Lewis [Hamilton], especially when I was at Ferrari," Vettel said.

"Lewis has always been right up there. Before that, it was probably Fernando [Alonso] when he was at Ferrari," he added.

The German joined Aston Martin for the 2021 season from Ferrari and despite having underwhelming results in his two-year stint with the Green team, Vettel said despite struggling he has enjoyed his time with the British team.

"They have been challenging because the car wasn't as competitive as we hoped. This year, we wanted to make a significant improvement over last year. We failed. We're currently where we finished last year.

"I'm not pointing the finger and saying we did a bad job. I'm just being realistic. We had high hopes, but we fell short," Vettel said.

"I don't think it was a useless two years, even though the results and points we scored weren't that useful or what we hoped for.

"I've loved working with the team - getting to know different people and different approaches. These two years have been very challenging because I wasn't familiar with running at the back of the field. It has been a new experience - tough at times - and I realized a lot.

"That you only see what's happening around you," he added. "If you're at the front, you only see what's at the front. If you're at the back, you only see what's at the back - but you're always looking to the front because you want to be there.

"But when you're at the front, you don't look at the back because it doesn't impact you and you don't appreciate just how much work the teams at the back are also putting in. Just because you're not scoring big results, doesn't mean you're not working as hard.

"I'm very happy and proud to have worked alongside such a talented and dedicated group of people at Aston Martin F1.

"Even though it wasn't a lot of fun in terms the results, it's been a lot of fun working with everyone - helping the team on its journey and building for the future," Vettel concluded.