Vettel, who took part in the Spanish Grand Prix at the weekend, was getting out of a car on Monday when thieves snatched his bag, a spokesman for Catalonia’s regional police force, the Mossos d’Esquadra, told AFP.

The 34-year-old Aston Martin driver then notified police and set off in pursuit of the bag snatchers by tracking the GPS signal from his headphones, the spokesman added.

Daily El Periódico said Vettel asked a woman to lend him her electic scooter to help him catch up to the thieves. Police did not confirm this information.

The four-time world champion found his headphones which were abandoned by the thieves but not his bag and the rest of its contents, the police spokesman said.

A spokesman for Aston Martin confirmed the driver had tried to find his stolen bag using his smartphone “to locate the headphones that were inside”.

“But when he managed to locate the headphones, they had been abandoned and he was therefore unable to locate the stolen bag,” the spokesman told AFP.

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