Vettel, Perez open to following Alonso's example

Four-time Formula 1 world champion Sebastian Vettel and perennial F1 over-achiever Sergio Perez are open to following Fernando Alonso's lead in the future by participating in major events like IMSA's Rolex 24 at Daytona.

Rocking up to the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship's season opener, however, would only become a consideration for the Scuderia Ferrari and Sahara Force India drivers after their Formula 1 careers come to a close.

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"I think it's good experience," said Perez, whose younger brother Antonio drove an Aston Martin V12 Vantage at Daytona in 2016 (pictured above). "Obviously, Fernando is wanting to experience that route a lot, with Indy, the 24 Hours and probably he might think of Le Mans. I think it's a great, you know. I think it's a great experience. It's one of those races that you would like to do at some point.

"I went there actually last year to see my brother. He did the 24 Hours in Daytona, and it's an amazing race and an amazing venue. It's one race that I definitely want to do at some point in my career."

For Vettel, who readily admits he isn't sure which cars and classes are found in IMSA's premier series, the idea of joining the sport's legends – many who raced in multiple championships each year – is where the appeal lies.

"I don't even know which cars they really race there; I think it's GT3 mostly in Daytona [and] LMP2," he said. "If you look back a long way – not the last 20 years probably, but a long way – drivers used to race a lot more in different cars, which I generally find pretty cool. The fact that they had to adapt to different cars, work with different people, with different mechanics, setting up the cars differently but mostly drive and adapt.

"Obviously where the sport has gone has been very very professional – there's not that much time to do many other things, if you commit properly to Formula 1. But overall we are racing drivers and I quite like the idea to drive more in different cars. I don't know if that will ever change in the future but if they had different categories in the same weekend where Formula 1 drivers were... I don't know, with the Procar series many years ago, for example, with the BMW M1s, where they did a race before the Grand Prix (pictured above at the 1980 Austrian GP).

"Stuff like that I think would be cool but for sure you can see the difficulties these days in terms of the paperwork and all that. But for raw racing, it's very nice to race different cars – why not, every weekend?"