Sebastian Vettel

I started karting at the age of 3, competitively karting at 8 and by the age of 11 I was accepted into the Red Bull Junior Team. By the time I was 15, I had won multiple kart championships such as the German Junior Kart Championship, the Monaco Kart Cup and the ICA Junior European Championship in 2001.

In 2003, I made the step up to cars and made my car racing debut in the Formula BMW ADAC Series with Eifelland Racing where I would finish 2nd in the standings with 5 victories and 12 podiums. The folowing year I would stay in the Formula BMW series this time with ADAC Berlin-Bradenburg and dominated the championship winning 18 of the 20 races and achieving podiums in all 20 races.

In 2005, I made the step up to the Formula 3 Euro Series with ASL Mücke Motorsprt and finished the season 5th with 6 podiums and also won the Rookie's Cup. I also competed in the Macau Grand Prix and finished 3rd after starting 8th. The following year I would stay in European Formula 3 this time with ASM Formule 3 and finished the season runner-up with 4 wins and 9 podiums. This same year, I also entered 4 races of the Formula Renualt 3.5 Series with Carlin winning a race and scoring another podium however had to be sent to the hospital after a bad crash at Spa-Francochamps,Belgium where my finger was almost sliced of by debris but despite being expected to be out for weeks, I still competed in the Masters of Formula 3 finishing 6th respectively.

I competed full time in the Formula Renault 3.5 Series in 2007 again with Carlin and was leading the championship up until round 3 before I was called up by BMW Sauber to replace the injured Robert Kubica at the United States Grand Prix in Indianapolis which is where I would make my F1 debut. I still competed in 1 further round of the Formula Renault 3.5 Series and was still leading the standings but did not finish the year with Carlin to focus on Formula 1.

After already previously competing in multiple practice session with BMW Sauber as their test and reserve driver, I was told I would be standing in for the injured Robert Kubica after a spine-chilling crash at the previous round in Canada. My weekend in Indianapolis got off to a good start and qualified 7th on debut making it to Qualifying 3. In the race, I got off to a bad start going wide and losing multiple places but escaped damage. However, I was able to climb my way back up to 8th and scored my first point in Formula 1 on debut and attaining the record for youngest points scorer in Formula 1 at 19 years and 349 days, a record I would hold for 7 years.

My debut impressed my bosses at Sauber but I wasn't given a drive however my other bosses at Red Bull were very impressed and in July 2007, I was released from contract at BMW in order to join Red Bull's "sister team" Toro Rosso replacing Scott Speed from the Hungarian Grand Prix onwards. In the remaining 7 races, I achieved a best finish of 4th at the Chinese Grand Prix.

2008 was my standout year, I was retained by Toro Rosso for the season partnering Sébastien Bourdais. After bad start to the season resulting in me not finishing 4 of the first five races, I scored my points at Monaco finishing 5th. After further points at Canada, Germany, Spain and Belgium recording a 5th and a 6th place finish, took pole position(meaning starting first) for the Italian Grand Prix and taking the record for the youngest pole sitter in the process. I dominated the race and won my first ever race in Formula 1, taking another record(youngest race winner) and putting the car in a position it shouldn't have been. After Monza, I had 3 further points finishes in the final 4 rounds with a best result of 4th at Brazil and I finished the season 8th ahead of my teammate and both "senior team" drivers David Coulthard and Mark Webber.

In 2009, I was promoted to Red Bull to replace the retiring Coulthard. After a rocky start to the season, I gave the team their first win at the third round in China. After that, I achieved 7 more podiums including 3 victories and finished my first year at Red Bull in 2nd places just 11 points behind champion Jenson Button.

2010 was a year to remember. After helping the team clinch the Constructors' Championship, I headed into the final round at Abu Dhabi 3rd in standings 15 points behind leader Fernando Alonso. I took pole, won the race and after Alonso crossed the line 7th, I was crowned the 2010 Formula 1 World Champion. A dream every driver has when they're child, I was finally able to achieve it. However, I didn't stop there. I dominated the 2011 season winning 11 out of the 19 races to become a double world champion. I had another titanic battle with Alonso in 2012 where I held on to claim my third world title. Finally in 2013, I won 13 out of the 19 races, won 9 races in a row and became a 4 time world champion. At this stage, only Michael Schumacher and Juan Manuel Fangio had more championships than me. I was looking good to become statistically the Greatest Driver of All time and at only 26 years of age.

However, 2014 was a season to forget, a major regulation change played into the favour of Mercedes and I struggled massively throughout the season. I scored only 4 podiums and achieved no victories while Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton won his second world title.

I felt during the season that I needed a new challenge so I decided in October of that year, to join Ferrari for the 2015 season. This was a huge risk as Ferrari had struggled even more than Red Bull did in 2014 but it turned out to be a good decision. I started the season off well in Melbourne by finishing 3rd in my debut race with the Prancing Horse. However, the following race was special. After qualifying a respectable 2nd in Malaysia, the team gave me the right strategy and I was able to win the Malaysian Grand Prix in just my second race with the team. 11 more podiums followed including two further wins at Hungary and Singapore but the Mercedes was just too dominant and we had to settle for 3rd in the championship.

2016 got off to a good start, I finished 3rd once again in Australia although this time we could challenge the two Mercedes. However, the season didn't get on to well. Despite scoring 6 more podium finishes, strategy errors and car issues denied us any victories that season even when they were possible and I just finished 4th in the championship, 173 points behind eventual champion Nico Rosberg.

In 2017, I had hopw to clinch my fifth world title. In the first six races, I won 3 of them, finished 2nd in the other 3 and had 25 point lead over Lewis Hamilton. It was a very promising start and I lead the standings up until Italy but even then I was only 3 points behind. I took pole for the Singapore Grand Prix while Hamilton languished in 5th. This was the perfect opportunity to take back the championship lead. However, in an unfortunate turn of events, I had an incident at the start of the race with Red Bull's Max Verstappen and teammate Kimi Räikkönen which put me out of the race and gave Hamilton the victory. At this point, I was still only 28 points behind but reliability issues put an end to my title hopes and Hamilton won the title in Mexico to become a 4 time world champion. I finished the season 2nd with 5 victories and 13 podiums.

2018 had an even more promising start. I won the first two races of the the season and took a hattrick poles at Bahrain, China and Azerbaijan. Unfortunately, errors from both the team and I put an end to my title bid two races early and Hamilton overtook me in terms of championships. I added another 2nd place finish to my resume and won 5 races and achieved 12 podiums respectively.

2019 was a mediocore season. The car wasn't fast enough in the first half of the season and despite having the best car for half of the second half of the season, more mistakes and bad luck ruined any hope of even coming in 3rd and I had to settle for 5th in the standings behind teammate Charles Leclerc recording 9 podiums and only 1 victory.

2020 has been an even worse season. The car hasn't been as good because the engine and aero do not compliment each other. Teammate Leclerc has had a much better time scoring two podiums and multiple points finishes while I have struggled to adapt my driving style to the car, and I have only achieved 1 podium this season and sit 13th in the standings while Leclerc is 5th. Since the season was delayed due to the pandemic, the season didn't get underway until July but during that time Ferrari dropped me for the 2021 season. This left me without a seat for 2021 and soured the relationship with Ferrari. Fortunately, I found a drive for the future and I will be racing for Aston Martin Racing from the 2021 season onwards.