Why I follow Vettel

Before Vettel

Ok lets start out with my liking of F1, I started watching F1 near the end of the 03 season. These were the final days of Michael Schumacher's domination. Going into the 04 season I chose to follow Jenson Button, at that time holder of the record for the youngest person to score a point. In the 04 season he did extremely well, finishing 3rd behind the immortal Ferrari's which scraped up every win and lap record that season [if u check most of these tracks, Michael Schumacher still holds the lap records]. In 05 while still cheering for Button, I vouched for Alonso to win the championship, just so that Schumi could shut up and go home. Alonso won in fact he won 06 as well, he also took home the title youngest world champion ever. 07 saw the arrival of Hamilton who I cheered from arrival until 08. In 07 he missed the title by one point to the Flying Finn Ferrari pilot Kimi Raikkonen, but managed to take the championship home in 08 by beating Kimi's side kick Felipe Massa by one point. For 09 I planned to watch Hammi again, but after the first race of the season was dominated by Jenson Button, I had to switch back to my original idol. Jenson went on to dominate the 09 season in the brand new Brawn team. Currently Jenson holds the lead in the '10 season with 2 wins on the shelf, but for this season, I chose to jump ship.

During Alonso's remarkable season, a new team appeared, Red Bull. Replacing the half dead Jaguar team, Red Bull was [for me at least] the first ever seeing such a large company taking place in F1. At first I thought of it as a publicity stunt, pretty much one big expensive billboard, but soon I saw that they were up to smtn. Red Bull started up by taking in oldies to train the youngies. There first set of drivers had the widest age gap for teammates [12 years]. As Red Bull progressed they brought in even younger drivers through another team, Scuderia Toro Rosso [if ur daft its italian for Team Red Bull]. Red Bull officially became the training ground for anyone interested in F1, but since its induction, Red Bull has brought up one driver that has shone brighter than any other Red Bull trainee...... young German, Sebastian Vettel

07 and the arrival of Vettel

Now 07 was interesting because apparently Red Bull only hired people named Sebastian [ Sebastian Vettel, Sebastien Buemi and Sebastien Bourdais for Torro Rosso, Sebastien Loeb for WRC] Vettel started F1 originally in 06 wiith a temporary seat at BMW, midway in 07, Torro Rosso gave him a full time job, he rewarded them with results. As soon as he jumped in that seat, he was breakin records.

• youngest person to participate in a race weekend [06 Istanbul, Turkey Practice]
• youngest person to score a point [07 Indianapolis, USA]
• youngest person to lead a race [07 Fuji, Japan]
• youngest pole sitter, podium sitter and winner [08 Monza, Italy]

With so much success in the B car, by 09 Vettel moved up to the highly competitive Red Bull team and helped lead RB to a good amount of late season wins giving the pace leading Brawns a run for their money. At the end of it all he finished 2nd overall in points.

2010 Season

Now even in pre season testing I firmly rooted for Vettel even though the first person I followed in F1 [Jenson Buttton] was reigning world champ. I felt that Vettel could do it, and in the first race of the season he proved me right by holding the first pole position of the year, unfortunately the reliability of the Red Bull prevented him from turning his pole into a win. In fact most of the first 5 races of the season showed Red Bull could get pole, but couldn't materialize them into wins. He did win the Malaysian GP and his teammate Webber won today's Spanish GP. The season has just started and I will continue to follow this young man until he wins his first championship [hopefully this year that way he can also win youngest F1 champion]. O ye did I mention that he's also a director for the Grand Prix Driver's Association.

To me, aspects that I see in Hamilton that I liked, I see in Vettel, just that he's younger [and less famous]. Just like Vettel, Hammi was brought up through the rankings [by McLaren] and right now, Vettel seems like the only one who can possibly take on Hamilton's crown for youngest world champ.

Being German and all, who knows , he might be the next mike? [if u saw Vettel's first win at Italy, it might have been creepy hearing the German and Italian anthems being played, reminiscent of the days of Schumi @ Ferrari.] It should be noted that Schumi is still the only German world champion in F1, Vettel would make a good heir to the throne. After all, the duo of Vettel and Schumacher are the reigning nations cup [go GERMANY] champions in the Race of Champions, 3 times champions in fact.....

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