RPT-FEATURE-Motor racing-Vettel has Germany dreaming again

(Repeats feature first moved at 0002 GMT)

By Alan Baldwin

LONDON, July 8 (Reuters) - German Formula One fans, heading to the Nuerburgring with their cars and camper vans loaded with beer and sausages, will be drinking to the success of Sebastian Vettel this weekend.

The party will really kick off if, as locals hope, the 22-year-old Red Bull driver becomes the first German to win his home grand prix since seven times champion Michael Schumacher retired in 2006.

Like Schumacher, Germany's greatest motor racing talent of the modern era, Vettel is a winner. He is young, fast and sure-footed in the wet. He also lives in Switzerland.

But in many respects, the engaging youngster from Heppenheim has more in common with Italy's extrovert MotoGP champion Valentino Rossi than Schumacher, the great he hates to be compared with.

Vettel, the only man other than championship leader Jenson Button to have won this season, may have attracted the moniker 'Baby Schumi' early in his career but he could never be described as a typical German racing driver.

He has a penchant for British humour, from Monty Python to Little Britain, lapsing into Cockney rhyming slang and the occasional Birmingham accent along the way.

He even expressed a momentary twinge of regret at not being an Englishman when he won at Silverstone in front of cheering crowds last month.