GP Report: Fairy tales do come true

Sebastien Vettel is now officially the youngest Grand Prix winner, winning his first Grand Prix and after 23 years the first Grand Prix win for Minardi. I know that the team has changed owners and the cars are designed for the most part in Milton Keyes, but the factory is still in Faenza, they are still the smallest team in terms of staff in Formula One, and they have a bit more money, but much of the staff are the same that were there when the team was Minardi and were the lovable backmarkers. The Same men and women who celebrated enthusiastically when Zsolt Baumgartner scored a point for 8th place at Indianapolis in 2004 are celebrating a win, yes a Minardi/Toro Rosso win. You couldn't ask for a better story as they not only won a race, they won their home race, becoming the first Non-Ferrari Italian team to win a Grand Prix since 1957. The main championship protagonists did not end up figuring in the result, although for a while Lewis Hamilton was looking as though he could challenge for the win only to be beaten by the weather.

In a wet and rainy afternoon it was a race which rewarded good driving, good strategy, and a bit of luck. Vettel was on pole and blasted away from the field when the race started (behind the Safety Car). Unfortunately for STR his teammate, Seb Bourdais, suffered a gearbox malaise on the dummy grid and had to be towed back to the pits. He ended up getting going a lap down and lapped very well all day, but could not recover. Vettel then proceeded to pull away from the field and the cynics started to wonder how much fuel he had. He ended up pitting on lap 17, four laps before second placed Heikki Kovalainen and third placed Mark Webber. After the pit stop shuffle he was back in the lead and running well as the track started to dry. Meanwhile behind him Lewis Hamilton was putting on a show charging through the field after a poor 15th placed qualifying performance, showing why he is the best wet-weather driver in F1 at the moment. He was on a one-stopper and Vettel was on a two stopper so it was looking like the race would be a Vettel-Hamilton duel. Hamilton put more extreme wet tyres on at his stop as the forecast was calling for more rain. Unfortunately for Lewis, and fortunately for Vettel this did not happen and the track continued to dry and up and down the pit lane everyone waited for someone to have the courage to put intermediate tyres on to be a guinea pig. That Guinea Pig ended up being David Coulthard who, after going off on his outlap, started to lap as quick as the leaders. The next man to go for it was Fernando Alonso, who was faster than the men on wets and it became obvious that Inters were the way to go. This played beautifully into Vettel's hands and it was right in his pit window and so he stopped and put inters on and went on his way, while Hamilton had to stop again. Lewis stopped and emerged back in seventh, where he stayed until the end. Vettel duly cruised home to his and his team's first victory, a very popular win in Formula One circles. Second place went to Heikki Kovalainen, who was solid but unspectacular. On the extreme wets he was decidedly average while his teammate was blowing past anyone and everyone who was in his way and was 2 seconds per lap quicker than anyone else. Kovalainen was also on a two stopper and his second stop was also perfectly timed for him to finish where he started. Third went to Robert Kubica, who was also one of the hard charges and who also profited from the weather. He did not have the greatest first stint, but in the middle he was very good and his pitstop was timed to perfection to get a well deserved podium. The rest of the points finishers were Fernando Alonso, Nick Heidfeld, Felipe Massa, and Mark Webber, who all drove solid races and for the most part lucked out with the tyre choices. The only notable exceptionw as Hamilton who for most of the race was incredibly quick, much faster than the field, but a second pitstop put him seven seconds behind Massa on his Inters. Lewis quickly closed the gap but in the process burned his tyres and so once he got to Massa he couldn't do anything about him and had to settle for seventh. He still leads Massa by one point in the championship with four races to go. And what of Kimi Raikkonen you ask? Well Kimi had one of his very inconsistent afternoons where he farted around in the midfield not doing anything special and then put on the afterburners late in the race and set fastest lap after fastest lap and overtook multiple cars, but he still could only finish 9th and out of the points. Kimi is now 21 points behind Hamilton in the drivers championship wih four races to go, certainly he can't catch Lewis unless the McLaren driver suffers a monumental meltdown, which does not look bloody likely. Of the rest both Williams and Toyota flattered to decieve having been caught out by the changing weather. Nico Rosberg ran very well at the beginning of the race but his strategy meant having to make an unscheduled stop for inters and he ended up 14th while teammate Kaz Nakajima started from the pitlane and ended up being able to profit from tyre strategy only to end up stupidly trying to go around the outside of David Coulthard at the entry to the Parabolica. It was never going to work and there was a collision, taking DC's front wing and damaging Kaz's car sufficiently to slow him down, given the circumstances 12th is not bad. Speaking of COulthard he was in the wars today as well, he started somewhere in the midfield and was battling Giancarlo Fisichella's Force India when, while overtaking, there was contact that resulted in a broken wing for Fisico that ended up causing the Italian to go off into the barriers. DC then putzed around in the midfield until he was caught out by the daft actions of Nakajima and ended 16th, a lap down. Honda were there woeful self again with Button 15th and Barichello 17h. There only notable action was when Rubens pitted for full wet tyres while everyone else was on dries. The gamble was never going to work, but when you are in craptacular land you try anything you can to get some points. Force India were looking decent in Fisichella's hands only for him to end his day in the barriers while Adrien Sutil did absolutely nothing and was last, even behind who started more than a lap behind the rest of the field.

All in all it is the feel-good story of the F1 year thus far and the result has kept the championship finely balanced. Bring on the night race at Singapore!!!