Vettel overwhelmed by his achievement

By Alan Baldwin GREATER NOIDA, India (Reuters) - Sebastian Vettel cast his mind back to a time when he put pictures of Michael Schumacher on his bedroom wall and played with toy cars in a sandpit - and struggled to come to terms with his achievement on Sunday. "I am overwhelmed, I don't know what to say but it is the best day of my life so far," the Red Bull driver gasped. At the age of 26, the German had become only the fourth Formula One driver - after Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio, Schumacher and Frenchman Alain Prost - to win four titles and by some way the youngest. Vettel's victory in the Indian Grand Prix was his sixth in a row, 10th for the season, and his third in three appearances at the Buddh International Circuit. No other driver has ever won there. To put Vettel's meteoric career into perspective, Prost had to wait until he was 26 before he could celebrate his first grand prix win. Vettel has now won 36. Schumacher, the previous youngest four times world champion, had to wait until he was 32 to celebrate the feat. Prost took his fourth at 38, Fangio at 45. "It's very difficult to understand," said the man who could one day go on to match Schumacher's record seven titles. "Put it this way, I was watching TV, I was watching Formula One when Fernando (Alonso) started to win races (in 2003). "I had pictures of Michael Schumacher on my wall when I was a teenager," he said. "I remember 1995, 1996 and 1997 and I looked up to him but it's weird to think that's me now. It is funny because I am still a kid and people ask for my autograph." BIG NUMBER Vettel has a detailed knowledge of the sport and spoke in humble tones of those he had now joined - as well as others such as Britain's Stirling Moss who never won a championship but also ranks as one of the greats. Moss finished runner-up in the championship four times in a row between 1955 and 1958, losing out to Fangio in three of them. "To win four titles, I don't know, it's just a big number," Vettel told a post race news conference. "To join people like that (Moss)...Michael, Fangio, Prost. It's very difficult for me to put into perspective. I'm way too young to understand what it means," said the champion. "I might be 60 one day and maybe then I understand but nobody cares any more. But I care." Despite his tender years, Vettel said he was grown up enough to understand why his season has also been punctuated by boos from the crowd when he stood on the podium, notably in Monza and Singapore. "To be booed when I had not done anything wrong was hard, but I think I answered the things on the track which I am very pleased about," he said. "I don't blame the people that booed, you know," added the German. "If I go to the football stadium, for example, I cheer for the home team...the guy who scored a goal you don't appreciate him being an amazing player and you might boo because other people boo." Vettel explained how he had received a letter after Singapore from one of the fans, apologising for his actions. "I think if people think about it, they understand. But in the heat of the moment, you know, there's nobody really to blame. Somebody starts, some people join in, others don't," said the Red Bull driver. "We are fans of the sport and if some people have a passion for Ferrari...they don't like it if somebody else wins. It's not necessarily my fault. I think I'm mature enough to understand that." In India, on Sunday, there were no boos. Only cheers. And a happy young German swigging from a very large bottle of champagne.