As the Silverstone squad enjoyed a surprise upturn in form at Austin's Circuit of the Americas, Vettel and teammate Lance Stroll were competing for the best of the rest spot in the early stages of Sunday's United States Grand Prix.
But as Stroll took himself out of the race by colliding with Alpine's Fernando Alonso, which yielded the Canadian a three-place grid penalty for Mexico, Vettel's race also nearly came undone due to a slow second pitstop.
The German, who is retiring from F1 at the end of this season after a glittering career, fought himself back into eighth with a pair of stunning overtakes around the outside of Alex Albon and Kevin Magnussen, the latter move occurring on the final lap of the race.
While Vettel stressed his "decision was made" to call time on his F1 career, he admitted he will "miss the adrenaline" of his action-packed final stint at COTA.
"Obviously, I will miss these moments. That's not a secret," the four-time world champion said.
"But I did think long and hard making the decision and I also thought about these moments that I will miss the adrenaline and so on. Obviously, parts of me will miss those a lot; other parts are looking forward to what's coming."
Vettel said it was a "total surprise" for Aston Martin to be quicker than its midfield rivals all weekend. But the Aston did lack the top speed to go for straightforward DRS overtakes.
Therefore he had to be bold by attacking Albon and Magnussen in the technical final sector, making nearly identical passes in the quadruple right-hander.
"It was a total surprise to be faster than McLaren and Alpine," he admitted. "I mean, we've looked after the tyres well, but I don't think that's the main factor.
"Obviously, without the slow pitstop we would have scored double the points. In return at least I had a fun race at the end, and we could recover some points.
"Unfortunately, we didn't have the pace down the straights to just pass comfortably, so I had to try something unusual, either on the brakes or in unusual spots. And I did and it worked most of the time.
"I definitely had some fun and I had tight battles, especially with Kevin at the end. It's a bit of a climax and he's one of the most difficult ones to overtake in the entire field. But he left just enough room and it was good fun for both of us."
