Sebastian Vettel Had F1's Greatest Peak Ever

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Sebastian Vettel was never supposed to be Red Bull's star. The team that had already purchased a second Formula 1 team to develop talent had put its now-famous driver development system into place years prior, building a massive pool of talent that did not include then-BMW Sauber prospect Sebastian Vettel. That changed when Vettel turned heads as a test driver for a team with no room to hire him in 2007, leading two practice sessions in weekends where he did not actually race. When he scored points in his debut as an injury replacement for Robert Kubica at the 2007 United States Grand Prix, Red Bull saw their future. In his legendary 2010 to 2013 peak, Vettel showed that it was the best decision the company has ever made.

Vettel joined Red Bull's Scuderia Toro Rosso in the final stages of the 2007 season, but he scored points just once in 12 races behind the wheel of their STR2 in 2007 and 2008. That finish, a stunning fourth from 12th on the grid in China, seemed like an outlier at the time. It would not be an outlier once STR debuted their Adrian Newey-penned STR3 six races into the 2008 season.

Red Bull's new prized prospect went on a tear in the STR3, scoring points in nine of 13 races. While his four-time-and-reigning ChampCar champion teammate Sebastien Bourdais scored points just once in the same stretch, Vettel took the team's first ever pole in the rain at the Monza track where he had set the fastest lap in practice sessions as a testing-only driver two years earlier. A day later, he bettered the feat by outrunning Heikki Kovalainen on a wet track to take his first career win, the first of just two wins ever for the team now known as AlphaTauri, and the first ever win for Red Bull's ambitious two-team Formula 1 operation. It made Vettel the youngest winner ever, a record that stood until Max Verstappen's win in his first race with Red Bull.

When Vettel accepted his expected promotion to the Red Bull senior team in 2009, the program had never won a pole or a race. Vettel changed both in China, three races into the season. He would add three more of each that year, enough to get himself to second in the driver's championship and combine with Mark Webber to take Red Bull to second in the constructor's championship.

Championship contention came in 2010, but a strong year by Webber and Fernando Alonso's best year at Ferrari left Vettel third in a four-man race for the title going into the Abu Dhabi season finale. Vettel won from pole while Alonso and Webber struggled to seventh and eighth respectively, making him the youngest world champion ever. Unlike his race win record, Vettel still holds that distinction over Max Verstappen.

What followed was the greatest peak in the history of Formula 1, one shared between Vettel and designer Adrian Newey. Over the next three years, Vettel would win 29 of a possible 58 races and 30 of a possible 58 poles. Despite a well-recorded internal rivalry with teammate Mark Webber, Vettel won 13 of 19 races in 2013 season and a shocking 15 of 19 poles in the 2011 season. Both are all-time records, as are the nine straight wins to close the 2019 season. Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher have him beat in longevity, sure, but nobody has ever had a stretch like Vettel did in Adrian Newey's Red Bulls.