Sebastian Vettel already focused on making 2012 Formula 1 campaign even better

The German wrapped up this year's world championship with a 122-point cushion, having taken 11 race victories and 15 poles.

But as he celebrated the achievement in Red Bull's Home Run event in Milton Keynes this weekend, Vettel said he was starting to put 2011 in the past and focus on next year's car.

"We had a fantastic season. It takes some time to realise how special it was," he said. "It has been phenomenal. It will be a season that we will look back on and always be very proud of.

"These kinds of seasons don't happen every year but we're already focused on next season. Adrian [Newey] and the guys are working hard to get the car ready for next year and we move on."

Vettel admitted it would be hard to improve on 2011, but was sure Red Bull would be able to take another step forward.

"You have to say that this year was pretty smooth - maybe faultless because we had no issues with reliability, except for Brazil but we were still able to finish the race in second place," he said. "Other than that, nothing went wrong from a car point of view. The retirements we had were Mark [Webber]'s crash in Monza and the puncture I suffered in Abu Dhabi, but car wise and engine wise it was better than expected.

"Everything is built on the limit, we're pushing in every area and sometimes things might break but this year everything was working fine. The target is to keep that up. Next year the cars will be slightly different, not a revolution but the regulations have changed a bit again so we have to adapt and at the moment we are pushing very hard to finalise the car. Then at the beginning of next year we try to put it together, put it on the track and see how it works.

"Hopefully it will be quite reliable from the start but the most important thing is that the car is fast. It's easier to make a fast car reliable then make a reliable car fast."

He also underlined that all the success he had achieved so far was not diminishing his motivation to keep pushing for more race wins and titles.

"Professionally, the last couple of years have been very successful but we tend to look forward," Vettel said. "I don't think anyone is lacking motivation so we don't have to ask ourselves what we are doing because we have already achieved so much.

"Being 24, it would be sad to say that has been the highlight of my life and from now on it only gets worse! Even if I retire one day I will still wake up in the morning and think that my best day is still to come."