Sebastian Vettel

He may look back on 2010 as a year of missed opportunities (then again, he may not if he can become world champion), but Sebastian Vettel has proven once again that he is a driver of exceptional speed.

Fourth in the Formula 1 World Championship standings with two races to go, the Red Bull driver needs everything to go his way if he is to become champion and to retain his number one spot in the Castrol Rankings.

Despite not finishing the recent Korean Grand Prix due to a late engine failure, his win in Japan and pole positions at both Suzuka and Yeongam ensured that the German became EDGE Performer of the Month for October.

It is the second time Loeb has won the award, the last time coming in April, during which he began his 32-week reign at the top of the Castrol Rankings.

His winning margin was only a slight one over Sebastien Loeb, who wrapped up his seventh World Rally Championship title in October.

F1 points leader Fernando Alonso and NASCAR aces Denny Hamlin and Jimmie Johnson completed the top five while Mark Webber, Vettel's closest challenger for the Castrol Rankings top spot, was only 11th best.

Ranking Year

After winning a BMW scholarship fund, Vettel made his race debut in Formula BMW Germany in 2003 and immediately showed his talent by winning on only his third start at Adria.

He won four more times that year on his way to the runner-up spot in the championship, and went one better the following season as he won 18 of the 20 races and dominated the series.

For 2005 he moved up to the F3 Euro Series and won the Rookie of the Year title in his first season. He also had his first taste of F1 machinery at the age of 18 as he tested for Williams - his prize for winning the FBMW crown in his homeland.

It was the following season though in which he truly arrived on the international scene, with his runner-up spot in the F3 Euro Series and two wins from three races in the World Series by Renault almost becoming an afterthought.

This was because after Jacques Villeneuve's sacking from the BMW Sauber F1 squad and Robert Kubica's promotion to a race seat as a result, Vettel was named as the team's official test driver from the Turkish Grand Prix onwards.

With F1 rules allowing test drivers to compete in Friday practice sessions at grands prix, Vettel was able to gain crucial mileage during the latter half of the year and became the youngest man to top an official F1 session in Turkey.

He made his F1 race debut at Indianapolis the following year in place of Kubica, who had been injured the previous week in an horrific shunt in Canada, and surprised the establishment by qualifying seventh and finishing eighth - becoming the youngest points scorer in World Championship history in the process.

All the while, he remained under a Red Bull management contract, its young driver co-ordinator Helmut Marko clearly spotting his potential from an early age. Following the sacking of Scott Speed from Red Bull's B-team, Scuderia Toro Rosso, Vettel was given a race seat for the final seven races of the season.

Fourth place in a wet/dry Chinese Grand Prix came his way and helped him secure a full-time F1 race seat with the team for '08.

The baby-faced assassin became the youngest winner in F1 history when he triumphed from pole at that year's Italian Grand Prix and continued his imperious rise the following season as he was moved to Red Bull Racing.

He took the team's first GP win in China last year and finished second in the World Championship behind Jenson Button.

His start to the 2010 season was even more impressive, with three pole positions from four races and victory in Malaysia, leading most to believe he would run away with the title.

The year has not panned out that way though. Team-mate Webber has proven more of a rival than anticpated, the Australian's speed leading to Vettel to make mistakes, like in Turkey where the pair collided, and in Belgium, where he lost control under braking and slid into the side of Button.

Nevertheless, only Alonso has won more grands prix than the German this year while nobody has got close to Vettel's nine pole positions (including four in a row mid-season).

He has also led 273 laps (beaten only by Webber's 315) and spent 483 of them inside the top two positions - more than anyone else in the championship. The season is far from done yet.