Sebastian Vettel

Interesting facts

He started karting at age three, and his childhood heroes were 'the three Michaels' - Michael Schumacher, Michael Jordan and Michael Jackson; his favourite song is the Beatles' 'Drive My Car.' Driving for Toro Rosso in 2008, he won the Italian Grand Prix at Monza aged 21 years and 74 days, becoming the youngest Grand Prix winner in history at the time; German media promptly nicknamed him 'Baby Schumi.' He became F1's youngest-ever world champion in 2010 at 23 years and 98 days old, then won three straight titles from 2011 to 2013, including a run of nine consecutive victories in 2013. In 2014, the year he defended his title, he failed to win a single race all season - the first reigning champion to do so since Jacques Villeneuve in 1998. After his Ferrari years (2015-2020) he closed out his career at Aston Martin, retiring at the end of 2022; he has since become a prominent environmental activist and, since 2023, co-owns Germany's SailGP sailing team. Sebastian Vettel raced in Formula 1 from 2007 to 2022, across 16 seasons as a German driver. He won the World Championship 4 times, in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013. He scored a total of 3098 championship points over his career.