Aston Martin Team Principal Otmar Szafnauer has said that Sebastian Vettel feels as though he is enjoying his racing again now after a tough 2020 at Ferrari.

A four-time Formula 1 world champion, Vettel looked quite the coup for the Aston Martin team heading into 2021, despite his struggles for the Scuderia last year.

Indeed, he simply did not look himself in his final campaign with the Maranello-based outfit, but it appears that he has got some of his mojo back now.

Some fine results have been recorded for Aston, too, with two second-place finishes - though the second in Hungary was eventually chalked off for a fuel infringement - and he has cut a happy figure around the paddock in interviews and in and around the Aston garage.

Certainly, it's something that Szafnauer has noticed with him expanding on Sebastian's current mood and morale via gpfans:

"Yeah, he’s more comfortable on the team. He’s more comfortable in himself.

“At the beginning, before Seb came here, he said, ‘Look, the reason I want to come is I want to enjoy racing again.’ That was his reason for coming.

“If you ask him, which I often do, he’s at a point now where he enjoys racing again.

“He didn’t enjoy Silverstone. He was beating himself up a little bit. He said he shouldn’t have made that mistake, but it happens to the best of us.

“Anyway, he feels really, really comfortable. He’s enjoying racing again, which is good.

“That’s exactly what he wanted.”

Vettel is still a very adept member of the F1 grid and he will be hoping that 2022 sees the Aston Martin team put together a car that can regularly challenge near the sharp end, rather than relying on bonkers races to provide a shot at a podium as in Baku and Budapest this year.