Sebastian Vettel’s WSR debut (Video)

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Here’s some video I found of Sebastian Vettel, one year before he made his F1 race debut. Vettel, who was racing in the F3 Euroseries at the time, got a chance to enter the World Series by Renault race at Misano in Italy. As the video shows, it worked out rather well for him.

Vettel qualified fourth on the grid for his first WSR race, and took pole position for the second race in the Misano double-header. An impressive performance given the step up in performance between F3 and WSR.

In the first race he muscled past Andy Soucek for third on lap one, but couldn’t make any impression on the leaders Pastor Maldonado and Ben Hanley.

But as it turned out, he didn’t have to. Hanley was hit with a penalty for weaving on the first lap, and Maldonado’s car failed technical inspection, making Vettel the surprise winner.

As if to prove his inherited win in the first race was not simply down to luck, Vettel won the second race as well. A true ‘star is born’ moment.

He was already contracted to Red Bull at the time, and 12 months later made a one-off debut in F1 replacing Robert Kubica for BMW at Indianapolis. But his return to the Red Bull fold was inevitably: he joined Toro Rosso later in 2007, won a race for them last year, and will drive for Red Bull in 2009.

His consummate win in foul weather at Monza last year was, for many, final proof that Vettel is the real deal. The inevitable tag of “the next Michael Schumacher” has been attached to him by some. But videos like this make make me think there’s more to Vettel than just the hype.

Read more about Sebastian Vettel: Sebastian Vettel biography

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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7 comments on “Sebastian Vettel’s WSR debut (Video)”

  1. TommyBellingham
    2nd February 2009, 15:58

    I remember seeing that race on TV :D

  2. This man will win 3 or more world championships.

  3. We finally get rid of one uber german and another one comes along immediately.

    1. Yeah, but this time there’ll be real competition for him!

  4. I didn’t know he had raced in that championship. Still it just goes to prove that a good driver doesn’t need a lot of time to get used to a new car provided the car is quite good.

  5. mmmm vettel will do big things if he can get in a top end car.

  6. Talent and luck, veeeery important combination!

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