Sebastian Vettel's journey from Kart club, Germany

Kart club in Germany is where the champion-in-waiting Sebastian Vettel first made a name for himself, both on and off the track, hanging around the charmingly rustic paddock, pestering his hero Michael Schumacher for his autograph, writes Tom Cary

To the wider world, there is nothing remarkable about Kerpen; a small and not particularly attractive town in former mining country roughly 30km west of Cologne, where the land runs flat towards the Belgian border.

Yet, in motorsport, and particularly Formula One, the place is a byword for excellence; known to every petrol-head with a pulse. Michael Schumacher, born a stone’s throw away in Hurth-Hermulheim, was a junior champion at the celebrated Graf Berghe von Trips kart track at the age of six. We all know what he went on to achieve. Barring a seismic shock, which would register even on Japan’s battered Richter scale, another graduate of the Kerpen kart club will become a multiple Formula One title winner at Suzuka on Sunday.

Sebastian Vettel may hail from Heppenheim, 200km further south, but Kerpen is where he started racing as an eight year-old in 1995. Kerpen is where Red Bull’s blond-haired, blue-eyed wunderkind first made a name for himself, both on and off the track, hanging around the charmingly rustic paddock ‘pestering’ his hero Schumacher for his autograph.

Perhaps most importantly, Kerpen is where Vettel met Gerhard Noack, president and part-owner of the circuit. The man who ‘discovered’ Schumacher. A former hobby karter himself, Noack recalls that first race in 1995. “Suddenly it started to rain,” he says. “Everyone else went on to wet tyres with only Sebastian driving on slicks. He really stood out.”

As well he might have done. Vettel had been karting since the age of three, when his father Norbert gave him a 60cc machine to ‘keep him off the streets.’ In one of those quirks of fate which enter into sporting folklore, Vettel Sr had to douse the front drive with water since the only way to get around one of the corners was by skidding around it. All those hours spent lapping an artificially-soaked courtyard had paid off.

Noack kept a close eye on Vettel, making sure he got the right equipment and met the right people, just as he had for Schumacher. It was Noack who facilitated Vettel’s meetings with Red Bull, for whom he signed as a 13-year-old, and BMW, for whom he first raced in 2007 before they let him go to Toro Rosso.

“I put a lot of time and effort, 10 years, trying to pave the way for Sebastian,” Noack recalled, after Vettel claimed his maiden title in Abu Dhabi last year. “In 1997, I even rented my business to have more time for Sebastian. I was convinced that he would be a world champion. It is a moving moment when you say: ‘Yes, the investment was worth it.’” And had he become rich off the back of it, he was asked. “No and nor do I want any (money). Because then it’s business, and perhaps it’s no fun to myself.”

What it has done, though, is make Noack uniquely well qualified to comment on the rise and rise of Formula One’s latest superstar.

In between the Singapore and Japanese Grands Prix, in early autumn sunshine, at the track in Kerpen Noack still runs a bambini-karting team, searching for more little Schumachers.

Somewhat surprisingly, given his relentless schedule, the real deal is here. Schumacher is wandering about the place with his shirt off, wheeling a mountain bike. Fans and locals mill about in the sunshine. No one bats an eyelid when the great man walks past. “It is one of the few places Michael can really relax and be himself,” Noack remarks.

It turns out Schumacher, a millionaire hundreds of times over, is actually staying in a camper van in a field just behind the circuit.

Only a gleaming red Ferrari parked incongruously outside hints at the van’s illustrious occupant. It says a lot, both about Kerpen and Schumacher that the seven-time champion should choose to spend a rare weekend off in this fashion. Vettel was back in Kerpen this summer for the first time in two or three years to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the club. Schumacher beat him in a 10-lap exhibition race.

“I guess Michael showed me who’s boss,” Vettel had said then. “He hadn’t changed a bit,” Noack smiles. “Very humble. That is a product of his family. They were always there — father, mother, sisters — at every race, in the family camper van. They never had any airs.”

Just a strong work ethic, apparently. The young Vettel printed out a Lance Armstrong quote and put it on the wall next to his bed: “For every single victory I paid with gallons of sweat.” Once, so the story goes, Vettel became angry when his sister Stephanie went quicker than him in the family kart. He refused his lunch and stayed out until he had set a better time.

Vettel appears to have upped his game this season. Unlike 2010, when he was dubbed the ‘Crash Kid’ by McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh, 2011 has been virtually blemish-free. Gone, too, is the occasional petulance which punctuated last year, replaced by a seemingly unflappable coolness. Partly that is down to being put under little or no pressure, partly the 24 year-old’s increasing maturity.

Not that everyone has been won over. As he stands on the brink of his second world title, Vettel is universally respected, widely liked, but perhaps not yet loved. Sure he is cool, he is young, he fits Red Bull’s brand, but to some he remains oddly anodyne. Maybe, it cannot be helped. Behind the easy-going, fun-loving exterior, the driver who gives his race cars racy names (current model: Kinky Kylie), quotes Fawlty Towers and takes his mechanics out for pizza, is an intensely private individual.

Vettel is extremely protective of his family and girlfriend Hanna, a fashion design student with a British father who he met at school in Heppenheim. His private life remains strictly off limits.

Out on track the final race of the day is about to take place. It is being run in memory of Tommy Knoppen, a young Danish karter who died in an accident two years ago. It is a tribute both to him and to the pull of Kerpen that the assembled field is so strong Schumacher has qualified only seventh.

I hear later that the 42-year-old recovered to finish fourth. Still no podium, but you have to admire the energy. Behind the barriers the young karters, flushed from their earlier exertions, jostle for position. One day, perhaps, they too will follow in the footsteps of Kerpen’s kings.