There was an interesting question for Mario Theissen as BMW’s motorsport director emerged from the pits at Monza. Rather than ask for a comment on Kubica’s well-executed third place, a journalist wanted to know if Theissen had any regrets about letting Sebastian Vettel go.
Before Toro Rosso got hold of Vettel, BMW had been brave enough to give the young German his opening in F1 at Indianapolis in 2007.
It was a fair question which received the anticipated politically correct reply about being the right decision under the circumstances. But you can bet Theissen might just wonder about what, so far, has been the only questionable move in an otherwise faultless F1 campaign by the German manufacturer.
You also sense an air of bemusement as Dietrich Mateschitz made his way towards the podium. Here’s the man who is pumping millions into Red Bull Racing and it’s the ‘B Team’, the former Minardi outfit he had been ‘persuaded’ to purchase by Bernie Ecclestone, which has been the first to win. And win handsomely.
Okay, Toro Rosso doesn’t have the massive development and build programme taken on by Red Bull Racing. But you could read his thoughts: ‘How come a team of less than 170 people can achieve this?’
It was a question many people were asking. Vettel was unchallenged. Many of us expected him to make the most of a clear track in the rainy opening phase but it was assumed that the big players would come through as Vettel made an early stop.
In the event, no one got near him. It was an incredibly mature performance that the 21-year-old could hardly take on board as he sat beaming before the media for the second day in succession.
‘That slowing down lap was the best lap I ever did at Monza – not the fastest but the best,’ said Vettel. ‘The last part of the race was unbelievable. I kept seeing P1, P1, P1 on my board, with the gap to Heikki (Kovalainen) not getting smaller. I thought “F***! If you keep this up, you’ll be winning.” Sorry about putting it that way – but that’s what I thought!
‘I knew I had to keep up my concentration. It was so easy to overshoot under braking because it was so slippery off line. So I just pushed all the way. Okay, the conditions weren’t easy. You could not see a thing when there was traffic and you just look left and right and then you see the 200 metre board and you know it’s time to brake.
‘It seems amazing to say this, but this is probably the most trouble-free race I’ve ever done. I was able to concentrate on my car and my driving. I had a lot of fun, from the first lap until the last lap.’
By the way, Toro Rosso is still for sale. Interested parties contact Mr. Mateschitz, the bewildered guy in the Monza paddock. Think the price might just have gone up.
Congrats to all the chaps involved.
It is well documented about the Minardi back grounds and it is good for all the original guys in the background to have good times.
I am not sure how well STR will do next year when the Red Bull development is taken away and they have to go it alone, so I think the end of season pace we are seeing now will only last until the end of the year, so lets hope Seb B can get some luck to prove himself for a drive next year.
the main RBR team must surely have some questions about next years renault engine as they have been trounced by the torro rosso of late.
Fantastic race by vettel, surely a future world champion if he gets in the right car?
WEll done to Torro Rosso, well deserved win!
Once Kimi, Massa and Alonso move from F1, Vettel has good change to move on to competetive team. Maclaren isnt good option, they play all for one Brittish driver, but Ferrari could be better, there is smaller changes to be a driver nr2 than in Maclaren.
Minardi… HEHE! Remember the team, that was fighting to get off from last and second last spot
? Well, there it is now at higest position. I’m thinking to buy it! 
ferrari 2010 vettel
what a job by toro rosso for making their car so good. For the last few races, that Toro Rosso has been really fast, for both drivers. Vettel full y deserved his win but Hamilton deserved better than 7th but still he leaves monza at the head of the championship. I cant help but feel next year will be Hamiltons last chance for a world championship if he cant do it this year. With Kubica and Vettel (the next Michael Schumacher indeed) coming through, they will contest the championship.
If Alonso is looking for another drive he could try toyota cos they will be good soon.
hmm altough I think Vettel did an amazing job, one victory doesn’t make someone a world champion. The same thing happened to Hamilton, he won his first race and all the sudden everybody was putting so much pressure on him to become the first world champion in his debut season, and it’s this pressure that destroyed any chance he had…
What I trying to say is that maybe it’s best to just keep Vettel at arm’s lenght, don’t put to much pressure or expectations on the kid… he really enjoys it and I’d say that he shouldn’t try for the title for atleast one or two year, because once you start doing that, everyone is gonna keep putting more and more pressure on his shoulders which will defintly take the fun out of it… just look at Kimi, Alonso and Hamilton, you think they still enjoy it as much as Vettel did?
The guy is just 21years old, so he still has plenty of time for that title, right now he should only care about enjoying himself out there
Amazing Vettel!!Also,impressive drives by Kubica and Alonso.A good solid drive by Kovalainen as well but his face said it all – looks like it’s finally dawned on him what being a ‘number two’ at Mclaren really feels like!Bad luck to Boudais-despite being last,he was going pretty damn fast most of the race.
soon vettel and kubica will fight for the championship
well done, fully deserved. vettel should be on his way to a top team in a few years…
Simply the biggest result in the since Schumacher burst on the scene! Vettel, if he stayed with BMW would have been batteling for the title! He is up there with the best and only 21!
Good job to Vettel and also Alonso and Kubica who managed to move up though the grid.
The best GP race since Micheal Shumi maiden win at Spa, his 1995 win also in Spa and his Barcelona win in 1996.
It is extermely refreshing to see an underdog in an underdog car win. Not that Shumi was ever one.
Hamilton: was Senna and Shumi all bound together, shame for the horrible tactics that saw him enter twice despite a One-Stop strategy.
Please don’t ever compare Hamilton to Senna.
Hamilton is just marketing with a good car and nothing else.
If hye was any good he would have gotten by Massa today, who cannot drive on the wet, but he didn’t do it.
Impressive was Vettel with a Minardi making the pole and winning the race, that is inpressive. And in Monza which makes it even more impressive.
look fellas, i support Hamilton as much as the next guy, but why in the hell is Vettal’s picture not on the main page… get over it, Hamilton may be good but he drove only slightly better than average today! So, suck it up and give Vettal his due.
Everyone now hails Vettel as a future F1 world champion (after winning only his FIRST race)??? Maybe, but I think it was because of sheer luck he got P1 in qualifying as the heavy rains took the fight out of the top contenders. Same holds true for the race.The only guy who can go flat out in rainy conditions is the one who starts at P1 because only he can have good visibility.
I hope Toro Rosso gets more funding next year. Frankly, I’m bored of seeing Ferrari and McLaren all the time. A mix of podiums will do greatly for the sport.
congrats vettel! he made every other driver and team look absolutely foolish this weekend. with a second-rate chassis and a customer engine (always a tick slower than the factory’s) he spanked all of f1.
the award for biggest disappointment is a tie between the 2 finns. kovalainen should have won this race, as he’s driving the world’s best race car and had only a single filler-team car in front of him. raikkonen, once again, set fast lap after fast lap, only after he’s irrelevant.
simon…absolutely. this just proves they are fans of hamilton, and not fans of the sport.
rrmmd…bad news, sunshine: there is no doubt he earned this win today.
gary…continued toro rosso success is doubtful. red bull’s owner has put his half of the team up for sale, leaving co-owner gerhard berger in the lurch. customer cars will be banned again after 2010. the only reason str exists is because bernie convinced red bull to support some grid-fillers at a discount price, while shoving it up the asses of williams and spyker/force india.
How was his win Luck? He was 3rd in Q1, 2nd in Q2, 1st in Q1. All that with a car worth about $5. There was no accident that took away any competition leaders. Quite a few drivers overtook others so you can not say visibility was a huge factor in no one catching him. Vettel simply knew how to drive his car consistently in bad weather.
An average driver tends to look good in a McLaren and wins races. Maybe even a championship or 2.
A great driver wins a race from pole in a STR with the top drivers on the track and no safety cars.
No one can say it was the safety car, or an incident that gave him his win. It was pure driving from qualifying to the podium. It was probably the cleanest first win ever. He made it with 18 drivers behind him.
The only disappointment was Hamilton who kept on nudging other cars off the track. Not smooth at all. At least his cornering is improving as he is mostly staying in the lines.
“Everyone now hails Vettel as a future F1 world champion (after winning only his FIRST race)??? Maybe, but I think it was because of sheer luck he got P1 in qualifying as the heavy rains took the fight out of the top contenders. Same holds true for the race.The only guy who can go flat out in rainy conditions is the one who starts at P1 because only he can have good visibility.”
Well, that makes more of a reason to like Vettel. He didn’t win with the best car (like Hamilton), but as they say, the rain makes everyone even right. So who was the driver to adapt and drive the best, clearly, Vettel. And it wasn’t his machinery, it was his driving. He did the best lap, so he got to start first…and he kept driving the best, so he won. Sounds like the start to a great career to me.
well said, bruce.
My mistake. Vettel was 1st in Q2 not 2nd.
Lets not forget Kimi and Lewis pulling out fastest laps while they were behind other cars. Which kinda sounds like they were going flat out.
did anyone else see hamilton pushing cars around? Glock, Alonso and Webber- They were so close to not making it.
Such a shame Raikkonen was stuck behind Barrichello, Nakajima, Piquet etc. after his second pit stop otherwise he would have been challenging with Hamilton, Webber and Massa- he certainly had the pace.
But this was in no way a fluke win- Vettel thoroughly deserved it! I would tip him for Ferrari in 2010…
The conditions can not really be blamed for qualifying. Mark Webber qualified 3rd on his last lap in Q3 in a $7 car. Heikki Kovalainen qualified 0.076 behind Vettel for 2nd. Vettel qualified in the same conditions as everyone else. Vettel qualified better in the wet conditions with a car using a dry setup.
Let us look at luck shall we.
Luck is when a car in front of you breaks down just before the finish. i.e. Heikki Kovalainen
Or when the two cars in front of you smash besides you in the pits. i.e. Kubica.
Good driving and strategy comes from controlling the race from beginning to end. More so from a car made of bits from the scrap heap in the wet using a dry setup.
Lets look at P1 being the only guy being able to go fast in wet conditions. That being true then Hamilton should have been no where near him. Least of all around about a second behind just before Hamilton’s pit-stop. Kubica should not have been gaining on Heikki who had a lot of clear space in front of him. Kimi should not have been able to pull out 4 fast laps in a row.
One could say Vettel made pole because he had less fuel and the conditions affected other drivers (I kept forgetting he has the “Jesus Car” which can drive on water). Yes he did. It paid off. No luck there. Good strategy and great driving. Get in front and stay in front.
I am quite sure some of the other teams have done it in the past. I guess those teams have been what some of you would call “lucky” as well. Teams like Ferrari and McLaren.
Bruce, you just made my day. i 100% agree that Vettel’s win was historic compared to others in the best car on the grid and certainly letting this years championship slip through their fingers. Vettel deserves to be at the front page and haven’t we had enough of the ‘whinger Lewis’. He’ll end up like Montoya, at least Montoya’s pace was electrifying in a Williams BMW (2nd best car then).
After Watching the race at monza, and being lucky enough to walk around the old banking and race thge track, it appears f1 just isn’t what it used to be, were technology was at the cutting edge, now it seems to be goverened by rules, you can overtake, you can’t overtake, no aerodynamic aids in 2009,
single tyre manufacturer. Why not watch A1GP as that is what they are already doing, a single make formula with one tyre manufacturer, but with less rules were real racing occurs.
F1Yankee, that’s very sad to hear. But isn’t there a minimum number of teams that have to compete for something? So teams like Super Aguri and Toro Rosso ‘have’ to join just to fill the numbers?
Great race for Vettel, hopefully first of many more co come.
But, I wanted to point out something other – Louis pushing other drivers (not Kimi, to be honest) from the track! Am I the only one to have noticed that?!
Yea, Lewis plays is really ugly when overtaking, like that toyota, Lewis pushed it to grass!
Im waiting the day, when someone wont give room, when someone desides to keep hes own lane. (Coulthard, Coulthard!)
Rags for Lewis, Riches for Der Seb!
@Milos: no you weren’t the only one, but you call it dirty racing, while other would call it “defensive” driving… in all 3 cases Hamilton was in front of the other car, so he has the right to defend his position, but to do it in such a dangerous way? :/
I wouldn’t bring it up to much though, cause Hamilton fans will immeaditly bring up Spa again, saying that Kimi forced Lewis of the track :/
Imo, Hamilton indeed defended his position by closing any gap trough which the other car could pass him… so all in all it seemed like legit manouveres
(which the FIA agrees with apparently, else they would have investigated it)
simon, the reason Hamilton’s picture was on the homepage is because when I set that up on Friday I took a punt that he was most likely to win in the predicted wet conditions for Sunday’s race.
Oh how wrong I was!
Anyway, I didn’t have access to the CMS over the weekend but now I have I’ve changed it for Mr V because, as you say, he deserves the credit.
Cool?
I think thats final proof that Vettel is a bigger talent than Hamilton is in all honesty.
Hamilton has had the best car for two years and has won races with it. Vettel has had the underdog car for a year and he’s won with that. Could Hamilton do that? I’m not sure
I would like to expand on your comment Julian.
It is proof that Vettel has the skill to be a great driver.
It also proves that a lessor team can win a race with a good strategy. Of course you need a good driver. But we can not forget that STR had 2 drivers qualify P1 and P4. Which to me says that they had the right strategy for the conditions of the weekend.
TO F1Yankee: I agree Vettel deserved his win and that’s because he has more luck than the other drivers and also his racing ability is not to be doubted. But as a potential future F1 world champion based on that first win of his? I doubt it!
why do you doubt it? what else promising do you see for the years to come other than Vettel and Hamilton?
the two wonderkids will no doubt be the main contenders for titles in the not-so-distant future(that is, when Vettel gets some more experience and transfers to one of the top teams)
anyone at Ferrari wondering whether resigning Massa until 2010 wasn t such a good move after all???
rrmmd, I think that he is a potential future world champion not because he won a race, but because of the manner in which he won it.
He drove an extremely competent, mature race and made no mistakes in the worst conditions imaginable.
That sort of wise head on very young shoulders surely marks him out as a future superstar no?
yeah the kid has potential, but we have no idea yet on how well he can perform under pressure… Hamilton has the same kind of potential, but we have seen him crack under the presure aswell last year. So I wouldn’t place any bets yet on whether Vettel is a future world champion…
and like I said before, imo, Vettel shouldn’t go after the title yet.. right now the most important thing for him is to enjoy and gain experience(keep in mind that Vettel only finished about half of the races this year), and then in a year or 3 he will be far better prepared to go after that title and will also be more capable of with standing the pressure that comes with it
I’m glad Hamilton didnt lose out on the championship and was able to hold out. He drove amazingly, but I’m pleased for Vettel, much as he’s usually nothing special. It was a great race though, really good to watch.
Well done Vettel!
But what bits of Toro Rosso is still Minardi? James ‘I’m really not funny’ Allen kept on telling us they were Minardi, but not what had carried over.
apologies for straying from the topic, but:
http://en.f1-live.com/f1/ en/headlines/news/detail/ 080915141257.shtml
Rivals unhappy with Hamilton’s driving
“I do not know what he was thinking. I was right next to him but he left me no room. Sometimes he drives as though he is completely alone on the track,” the German is quoted as saying by RTL.
“The next time I am with him (on track), I will behave with him in exactly the same way,” Glock promised.
Well done to Vettel, a well deserved victory. Hopefully the first of many for such a talented, young driver.
@ Catersam: Torro Rosso’s crew consists out of 80% of the old Minardi crew… Basicly Red Bull bought Minardi changed the name and then sponsored it to act as daughter team
Also Torro Rosso is pretty much the smallest team on the grid, with a total (and by that they mean EVERYONE) crew of about a 170 people…
Ferrari and Mclaren probably have about ten times that many people…
Vettel, scary in a nice way. 100% in control, driving with a dry setup in the wet. Wellcome, looking forward to the next… well, 16 years??
Massa, good for you, not fantastic, a mean scoring machine…
Hamilton, well, nothing, behind Massa in the wet… I agree with the unhappy drivers, he just keeps going all over the place. Of course he’s damn fast, but he’s not exiting, just irritating.
What if it was Nakajima or a Force India driver who won instead of Vettel? Are you guys going to heap praises for him like you did to Vettel? When Hamilton won his first race he also got a lot of praises and comparisons to former F1 greats. But now look at what kind of comments he is getting from guys like you! My point is please post comments that are intelligent, realistic, and not tainted with racism, favoritism/bias.
RRMMD… excuse me. i have thought that Vettel is a good driver since the start of the season practically. his drives have been fairly impressive and he dose look like a future prospect.
i do think that Scuderia Ferrari should get him because he has shown he can drive well and i think that with a car, not 4 wheels (compared to the rest of the field) he can win a fair few world championships and can be the real successor to a certain M.S.
Kimi and Vettel would be a great sight. and i have never liked Hamilton, i dont understand how anyone ever could be so full of them selves.
I do not recall a racist remark here. If Nakajima won like Vettel did then I am quite sure many would be congratulating him on his first win.
An intelligent comment is that Vettel did indeed control the race and had a fantastic first victory.
A comment that is not intelligent is to say that it was a fluke and that all the championship leaders were at a disadvantage because of the weather.
Bruce: Just be very analytal about all the circumstances concerned and throw out all biases/favoritism for or against any team or driver and you’ll see what I meant!
Hey guys, I’m not questioning Vettel’s driving ability nor the merits of his winning the race at Monza, nor am I questioning the driving abilities and the potential to become world champion of all the other F1 drivers. Its just that most comnments posted here are over-reacting, too personal, or as they say in boxing – “hitting below the belt”, and highly biased.
Hey guys, I’m not questioning Vettel’s driving ability nor the merits of his winning the race at Monza, nor am I questioning the driving ability and potential to become world champion of all the other F1 drivers. It’s just that most of the comments posted here are over-reacting, too personal, or as they say in boxing: “hittihg below the belt”, and too biased.
why has stigs identity been revealed?