Vettel opens up on pain of not being able to talk to Michael Schumacher

Seven-times world champion Schumacher hit his head on rock while skiing off-piste at the resort of Meribel at the end of 2013, and spent several months in a medically-induced coma.

The German superstar is now conscious, but cannot walk, has very little awareness of his surroundings and is still unable to talk - something which four-times champion Vettel said is a source of huge pain for him, and something which he particularly missed when deciding whether or not to leave Red Bull for Ferrari.

"It was the hardest decision of my life," Vettel told the Daily Telegraph. "Because the decision was so difficult, I would have loved to have spoken to Michael."

Vettel was dubbed 'Baby Schumi' from the time he first appeared on the F1 scene, his prodigious talent and babyface looks earning him the most flattering nickname possible after he won his first race at Monza in 2008.

His style is also similar to his German counterpart, with Ferrari team boss Maurizio Arrivabene calling him "a carbon copy" of Schumacher.

Thus it seems fitting that Vettel now has the place in the team that Schumacher enjoyed for many years - something which struck him keenly when he first turned up for work.

"Some 15 or 20 years ago, I was standing in front of the gates of Maranello, and I wasn’t allowed in,” Vettel said.

"I was just like any other fan, trying to see Michael. Now the gates opened and I was the one driving around the track. It was something quite special.”

Vettel refused to be drawn on questions about Ferrari's approaches to sign him over the years - which are thought to date back as far as 2008 - but did admit that he had spoken to Schumacher about joining the Italian team over the years.

"I had spoken to him many times about it before," he said. "Sometimes it was joking, sometimes it was serious. I think I missed that part a lot simply because I knew he would tell me the truth of what he thinks.

"The honesty he had in giving me advice over the years is probably the most special bit about it.

"Most people expect him to tell me, for example, ‘For turn 13 in Shanghai, try and stay on the inside’, or something like this. But this is nonsense. Every driver has his own style and you have to figure that sort of thing out for yourself.

"He was always very helpful and honest about all the rest in Formula One; the business side of things, his experience, the lessons he learnt. That’s obviously the part I was missing."