Webber predicts Vettel will take sabbatical from F1 in 2021

Mark Webber in 2011

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Mark Webber predicts Sebastian Vettel will take a year off from Formula 1 in 2021, because no good rides are available for him.

Webber was Vettel's teammate for each of his four championship wins between 2010 and 2013, before retiring at the end of the 2013 season when he realized he was never going to beat Vettel.

"I think he'll have a year off," Webber said on the F1 Nation podcast.

"I hope for all of us he can rejuvenate himself and get back into the spirit of wanting to be competing at the front again in Formula 1.

"Ultimately for me, it just got a bit harder. In your late-30s, that tenth just takes a bit longer to get – [it's] a bit more confident in certain positions and certain scenarios.

"It just gets that little bit more difficult.

"I wanted to be mindful of if you are starting to look at your clock, the motivation is starting to go off in briefings or whatever, you can't then demand that from the people around you to go the extra mile for you.

"You can when you're hungry, motivated, disciplined – you are one team and you've got a goal. If you are 9.5 out of 10, you can't have the same mission with your employees.

"Knowing how he [Vettel] works, which is 110%, he puts a lot of time and effort into it and he expects the same, clearly," Webber said.

"Michael Schumacher got in there, you had Rory Byrne (and Aldo Costa), Ross Brawn, Jean Todt – a very good mixture of culture when Michael was dominating.

"I'm not nailing the Italians, but I'm just saying when they are all one army (all Italians instead of a mixture of the best of the best), they still haven't delivered.

"Seb, under that regime, they did what they could, and he's just run out of puff there. He's literally just run out of puff.

"And then Charles comes in – clearly massively quick, full of energy, appetite, naivety.

"Naivety is a great thing, you just come in and go for it because you don't know anything else.

"Sebastian has been there, toiling, getting things going.

"He's had some challenging times at Ferrari, no question about it. I think they will miss him.

"I still think they will miss that experience. Leclerc is absolutely world class. But Seb, I think short-term, they'll miss someone of his experience.

"He's clearly not getting out of bed now motivated to drive a red car, and that's an issue."