Double world champion Sebastian Vettel has said that he is still looking forward to more success in Formula One in the future, admitting that it would be "pretty sad" to assume that he did not have greater heights still to reach.
Vettel was speaking as the Red Bull team celebrated back-to-back titles in the drivers and constructors championships in 2011, having dominated the season.The German's second drivers title made him the youngest-ever double world champion in the sport's history.
But Vettel has said that he will always be looking to the future, saying that he is sure that he and the team are still motivated to do even more in future.
"Professionally, the last couple of years have been very successful but we tend to look forward," he was quoted as saying by the Autosport website on Sunday.
"I don't think anyone is lacking motivation so we don't have to ask ourselves what we are doing because we have already achieved so much."
He went on: "Being 24, it would be sad to say that has been the highlight of my life and from now on it only gets worse! Even if I retire one day I will still wake up in the morning and think that my best day is still to come."
Vettel had a near-perfect campaign in 2011, breaking the record for pole positions in a season with 15 top spots in qualifying, and winning 11 races. He secured the title by early October at the Japanese Grand Prix and Suzuka.
And while he remained confident of yet more success to come, Vettel admitted that he and the team would struggle to match their performances in 2011 in the future.
"We had a fantastic season. It takes some time to realise how special it was," he gushed, "It has been phenomenal. It will be a season that we will look back on and always be very proud of.
"These kinds of seasons don't happen every year but we're already focused on next season."
On 2011, he added: "You have to say that this year was pretty smooth - maybe faultless because we had no issues with reliability, except for Brazil [with a gearbox issue] but we were still able to finish the race in second place.
"Other than that, nothing went wrong from a car point of view. The retirements we had were Mark [Webber]'s crash in Monza and the puncture I suffered in Abu Dhabi, but car wise and engine wise it was better than expected."
He went on to say that the aim for 2012 would be to replicate that staggering reliability with their new machine, but added that he felt the key was to start the new year with a fast car.
"Everything is built on the limit, we're pushing in every area and sometimes things might break but this year everything was working fine," he grinned.
"The target is to keep that up. Next year the cars will be slightly different, not a revolution but the regulations have changed a bit again so we have to adapt and at the moment we are pushing very hard to finalise the car."
He added: "Hopefully it will be quite reliable from the start but the most important thing is that the car is fast. It's easier to make a fast car reliable then make a reliable car fast."
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