🇩🇪 Sebastian Vettel

Sebastian Vettel is a retired elite professional who raced solo in single-class championships from 2005 to 2022. His record spans Formula 3 Euro Series and Formula 3 Macau as a junior, Formula V8 3.5 in 2006 and 2007, and sixteen seasons in Formula 1 with Ferrari as his primary team. He holds FIA Platinum grading, the highest professional classification in endurance and sportscar racing.[1]

Vettel won four consecutive Formula 1 World Drivers' Championships from 2010 to 2013 with Red Bull Racing. Across his sixteen seasons in Formula 1, he took 53 wins from 300 starts and finished on the podium 122 times. His career on record spans 349 starts across all series, with 59 wins and 144 podiums. In his junior seasons, he won four times in Formula 3 Euro Series and twice in Formula V8 3.5, finishing fifth in the latter's championship standings in 2007.[2]

Vettel's principal competitors were drivers at the highest level of the sport. Lewis Hamilton, a generational talent and multiple Formula 1 champion, was a regular opponent throughout his career; the two drivers were closely matched across their meetings. Fernando Alonso, an established professional and two-time Formula 1 champion, was similarly a frequent rival. In the later stages of his Formula 1 career, Vettel finished ahead of George Russell and Lando Norris, both generational drivers who would become multiple-time champions themselves. Over 16 Formula 1 seasons alongside drivers of this calibre, Vettel established himself among the strongest competitors in the sport's history.