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Seb: DIY done, now the hammer!

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<b>YET TO BE NAMED:</B> Sebastian Vettel said he needs to get to know his new lady before he names her. <i> Image: AFP</i>
<b>YET TO BE NAMED:</B> Sebastian Vettel said he needs to get to know his new lady before he names her. <i> Image: AFP</i>
LONDON, England - Triple Formula 1 World champion Sebastian Vettel is ready to put on his racing gloves and defend his throne after spending his winter break tinkering around the house.

The 25-year-year-old Red Bull driver said at Sunday's launch of the new RB9 racing car he'd been doing some odd jobs at home in Switzerland since the end of the 2012 season .

"I was mostly at home, it was important for me to just enjoy it and the things that were waiting there. Some DIY (do-it-yourself) and stuff you had no time to fix during the season and I enjoyed being in my own bed, doing my own breakfast rather than sleeping in a hotel and having the buffet,” said the German.

"You always want what you don't have, so usually when we are travelling a lot and sleeping in hotels you are really looking forward to coming back and sleeping in your own bed."

Vettel did not go into details about his 'DIY', saying it was just "some stuff that keeps lying around for the whole year".

A HOME FOR HIS TROPHIES

There’s a sneaky suspicion it might have involved work on extending his trophy cabinet. The hat-trick champion now has 26 GP' titles with Red Bull and one with Toro Rosso to his name. He said in March 2012 - before he had added another five race wins to his tally - that he was running out of shelf space for his trophies.

He also told reporters then that he liked to have the championship trophy on his kitchen table, with others in the living room, but he was intending to create a proper place to put them.

With the season kicking off on March 17 in Australia, Vettel should have plenty more coming along in the pipeline with Red Bull again the team to beat.

The champion said he was ready now to "put the hammer down" (to go flat out) on the race track as well.

"It's one thing to do all the talking now, but as soon as you have the hammer down you want to perform and do your best," he said with a grin.

A NEW LADY

Vettel has believes the cars he has driven are the fairer gender and has given names such as 'Kate', on to 'Kate's Dirty Sister', 'Luscious Liz', 'Randy Mandy', 'Kinky Kylie' and last year's 'Abbey'  to all his cars. There’s been no hint about the RB9 as he said "it surely will take some time, first we need to get to know each other."

He said he would sit down with his mechanics in the week before the Australian season-opener and throw around some names.

There is a lot of serious work to do and Vetttel recognised that it was likely to be a tough season, with the regulations very similar to last year and teams possibly closer than ever.

"It all starts again from zero and it will be tough to beat Mark (Webber), tough to beat the other guys and other teams because they will try everything to beat us.

"Obviously the last three years have been very good for us and we managed to beat them, but there is no guarantee or nothing that helps us to keep on winning or doing a good job."
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