Will Vettel provide a surprise ending?

By the side of the A5 autobahn from Frankfurt to Darmstadt stands a grey stone stele, about six feet high, bearing the name of one of Sebastian Vettel's most illustrious predecessors.

On Wednesday, as Vettel was arriving in Brazil to pursue his outside chance of depriving Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello of the 2009 world championship, a small group of enthusiasts gathered to place a bouquet commemorating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Bernd Rosemeyer, who died on that spot in January 1938 in the course of a speed-record attempt.

Like Vettel, Rosemeyer was a natural. In 1935, aged 25, he graduated from motorcycle racing straight into the Auto Union team.

The following year, thanks to three grands prix victories at the wheel of the company's tricky mid-engined car, he was crowned European champion, the pre-war equivalent of today's world title.

In those days German drivers were as dominant as German cars, and today it seems one of grand prix racing's most puzzling anomalies is that although Vettel is the 44th German driver to take part in Formula One since 1950, only one of his predecessors — Michael Schumacher, of course — managed to capture the world title.

Even though he failed to make it through the near-lottery of yesterday's rain-drenched first qualifying session, no sensible judge would bet against Vettel becoming the second.

With four wins to his credit, three of them in his second full season in the top flight, Vettel is making the same sort of impact as Schumacher, Ayrton Senna and Lewis Hamilton. These were drivers who did not need to serve an apprenticeship in grand prix racing. They were blindingly fast from the start, and their speed, matched by their early results, conferred an authority that outweighed their inexperience.

No eyebrows are raised when Vettel's Red Bull-Renault starts a race from pole position. It seems an utterly normal occurrence, a tribute to the symbiosis between a talented young driver and the fine car created by Adrian Newey, the team's chief technical officer. And the sight of Vettel on the top step of the victory podium is starting to become almost as unexceptional.

To snatch this year's title from his two rivals, he needs to win at Interlagos and in Abu Dhabi in a fortnight's time, while hoping that misfortune strikes the Brawn drivers.

Pressure

"The pressure is on the people in front of me," he said on Thursday, during a press conference shared with Button and Barrichello. "For me it is pretty straightforward. You don't have to be a genius to work out that from now on we simply have to win the two races and hope that these two mess it up."

Vettel's seemingly open and uncomplicated nature, his mischievous sense of humour and, it has to be admitted, his excellent command of idiomatic English, are winning him friends.

But there was a sign of a more volatile side to his temperament when he hurled his steering wheel away and marched straight through the garage after Saturday's reverse.