Sebastian Vettel was in the fortunate situation of being backed by Red Bull and on loan to the BMW Sauber team - the end result: he raced with both teams in 2007.

Like many before him, the German driver started his career in karting before moving to Formula BMW in 2003, taking Rookie honours, and followed that up by winning 18 of the 20 events on the way to the title the following year.

Moving up to European F3 in 2005, he was again the best of the Rookies and finished fifth overall. On top of his F3 programme in 2006, Vettel took over the BMW Sauber Friday testing duties at the Turkish Grand Prix.

Making one big impression on his F1 debut, Vettel topped the Friday timesheets in the F1.06 and was retained by the Swiss-based team as official test and reserve driver for the 2007 season. On the brink of Formula One, Vettel remained race sharp by competing in the World Series by Renault.

The Canadian Grand Prix saw regular BMW Sauber driver Robert Kubica suffer a heavy accident and as a result was unable to take part in the US Grand Prix a week later.

Vettel duly made his race debut and after qualifying a solid seventh he finished the race in eighth position. In doing so, the then 19 year-old became the youngest driver in history to score a Formula One championship point.

Meanwhile, the Red Bull run Toro Rosso Ferrari team had become increasingly disillusioned with incumbent Scott Speed. With his Red Bull backing, Vettel was an obvious call up for the Hungarian Grand Prix onwards and he made quite an impression...

His fifth race with the team saw the German running an incredible third in appalling conditions in Japan. Sadly for Vettel and the team, contact with Mark Webber whilst behind the safety car ended the day in disappointment. While it was a major error, Vettel redeemed himself with a great drive to fourth position in the rain-hit Chinese Grand Prix a week later.

Undoubtedly a star of the future, Vettel teamed up with Sebastian Bourdais in 2008 at Toro Rosso and it would prove to be quite a first full season.

The incredible Italian Grand Prix victory aside, Vettel proved to be one of the major players in 2008. His competitive spirit took him ahead of eventual champion Lewis Hamilton in the season finale in Brazil, completely unaware at the time that the pass may well have decided the outcome of the championship.

The team started the season with an updated version of the Ferrari-powered STR2 package before introducing the new Red Bull inspired package at the Monaco Grand Prix.

Vettel had a tough start to the season with accident and incident leaving him point-less after the first five rounds of the championship. Monaco brought the first reward of the season as Vettel finished in fifth position. Further points-paying results followed culminating in his pole to flag victory at Monza.

The season ended with three more top eight results and with 35 championship points on the board, Vettel ended the season in eighth position overall and propelled the Toro Rosso team to sixth position in the championship ahead of the 'works' Red Bull Renault team.

Vettel had made a big impact on the sport and for 2009 joins Mark Webber at the Red Bull Renault team. Arguably a potential champion, Vettel is on a roll...