Sebastian Vettel

Sebastian Vettel became Formula 1 world champion for the first time in 2010 at the age of 23, in the most chaotic title decider in decades. Four drivers arrived at the Abu Dhabi season finale with a mathematical possibility of taking the championship — Alonso, Webber, Hamilton, and Vettel. Vettel, starting from pole, managed the race impeccably. Alonso, who needed only to finish fifth, was caught behind a strategy call that dropped him into the midfield and left him watching Vettel take the title. The scale of the victory was immediate: the youngest world champion in Formula 1 history.

Three more championships followed in 2011, 2012, and 2013, all with Red Bull Racing and all underpinned by technical genius from Adrian Newey's aerodynamic department and Vettel's own capacity to extract performance through engineering feedback. His 2011 season was the most complete he produced — 11 wins from 19 races, pole position at 15 circuits, a technical and driving performance so comprehensive that rivals acknowledged during the season that the competition was essentially between everyone else for second place.

His years at Ferrari from 2015 to 2020 produced individual performances of brilliance without adding to his championship tally. In 2017 and 2018, Vettel challenged Hamilton for the title with a Ferrari that was at times the quicker car, but errors under pressure — Baku 2018 and Germany 2018 in particular — cost him points that may have changed the outcome of those championships. The pressure of leading a Ferrari team with decades of historical weight proved a different environment from the technical culture of Red Bull.

Vettel retired from Formula 1 at the end of 2022, having spent his final two seasons at Aston Martin where he drove competitively but without the machinery to challenge for victories. His post-racing life revealed the environmental and political convictions that he had developed quietly during his career — he became one of the sport's most vocal advocates on climate change, plastic pollution, and social justice. The image of Vettel that has emerged after retirement is of a more complex figure than the driven perfectionist the paddock saw behind the wheel.