Vettel was born on 3 July 1987 in Heppenheim, West Germany. He began karting at the age of three and entered competitive kart series in 1995. After winning the junior European Karting Championship in 2001, he progressed to single-seater cars. In 2004 he dominated the Formula BMW ADAC championship with 18 victories from 20 races, a performance that brought him to the attention of the Red Bull Junior Team and attracted a test offer from Williams. That dominance made Formula Three the logical next step.
Vettel drove for ASL Mücke Motorsport in the 2005 Formula 3 Euro Series. He finished fifth in the final standings with 63 points and won the Rookie Cup, which recognised the highest-placed first-year competitor. His performances over the course of the season confirmed that he had the pace and consistency to compete at the front of a strong field. Williams awarded him a Formula One test session as a reward for his Formula BMW title, and he also conducted testing for the BMW Sauber Formula One team during the same period, foreshadowing the professional relationship that would accelerate his path to the Grand Prix grid.
Vettel returned to the Formula 3 Euro Series in 2006, by which point BMW Sauber had elevated him to the role of test driver for the Formula One team — a position he held simultaneously with his F3 campaign. He finished the 2006 season as runner-up behind Paul di Resta, taking several race victories across the calendar. Vettel also participated in the 2006 Formula Renault 3.5 Series during the same year, finishing first and second at Misano in his opening two rounds before a serious hand injury — a finger nearly severed by flying debris following an accident at Spa-Francorchamps — interrupted his programme. He nonetheless competed in the 2006 Masters of Formula 3 at Zandvoort the following weekend, finishing sixth. His F3 runner-up result and his concurrent BMW Sauber test role meant that by the close of 2006 he was already being managed as a Formula One driver in waiting.
Vettel competed in the 2007 Formula Renault 3.5 Series at the start of that year, taking his first win at the Nürburgring, and was leading the championship when BMW Sauber called him up permanently following Robert Kubica's crash at the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix. He made his Formula One race debut at the United States Grand Prix, scoring a point and becoming the then-youngest points scorer in the championship's history. His rapid rise from F3 to a points-scoring Formula One debut within roughly two years confirmed that the European F3 campaign had achieved its purpose.
Vettel's Formula 3 Euro Series record is modest in raw championship terms — a Rookie Cup and a runner-up — but it sits within a career arc defined by rapid escalation. The technical feedback role with BMW Sauber, conducted while still competing in F3, gave him an unusual dual education: he was simultaneously learning race craft at the junior level and developing his understanding of a Formula One car's engineering requirements. That combination made him unusually well prepared for his Grand Prix debut and is broadly cited as a factor in the smoothness of his transition. He would go on to win 53 Formula One Grands Prix and become the youngest world champion in the sport's history.