Michael Schumacher, the most successful formula one driver of all time, has added his shining endorsement to the rising star of German countryman Sebastian Vettel.

As it becomes more and more likely that the on-form 21-year-old Toro Rosso driver will move up to the senior Red Bull team in 2009, retired Schumacher said: "He has everything a future winner in F1 needs."

Vettel's current team's co-owner Gerhard Berger added to the news agency SID: "The boy will become a big name."

With a more sober appraisal of Vettel's form, however, is American stock car driver Scott Speed, who was unceremoniously ousted by Toro Rosso last year, and replaced by the German.

"I have known Sebastian since he was a boy," 25-year-old Speed said in an interview with the Dutch magazine Formule 1 Race Report.

"He is a good driver and I wish him all the best. As a driver you need to be in the right place at the right moment, and at the moment he has that.

"He has of course been a bit lucky as well. All of his good results he achieved in the rain, and always with the right strategy by the team," Speed added.

Source: GMM