2008 Italian Grand Prix

Sebastian Vettel became the youngest driver ever to win a Grand Prix, after dominating the race from start to finish, in wet conditions.^[1]

Report

Practice

Adrian Sutil set the fastest time in the first practice session ahead of Rubens Barrichello and Giancarlo Fisichella with torrential rain.^[2] The rain was so heavy that several cars failed to set a time. By the afternoon the track had dried out and Kimi Raikkonen set the fastest time ahead of the BMW Saubers of Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica.^[3] It rained again during the practice session on Saturday, and Timo Glock set the fastest time ahead of Sebastian Vettel and Nico Rosberg.^[4]

Qualifying

It rained so heavily in qualifying that predicting the pole-sitter would prove to be extremely difficult. Heikki Kovalainen set the fastest time in Q1 with Lewis Hamilton just behind.^[5] Adrian Sutil, Jenson Button, Nelson Piquet, Jr., Kazuki Nakajima and Rubens Barrichello failed to make it into Q2, and for the first time a Force India made it into the second Qualifying Session.

Sebastian Vettel set the fastest time in Q2 ahead of Heikki Kovalainen. Lewis Hamilton, Kimi Raikkonen, Felipe Massa and Robert Kubica all struggled to find grip and speed. Felipe Massa narrowly made it through to Q3, Hamilton was extremely slow, after being out on the intermediate wet tires, rather than the full extreme-wets at the wrong time^[6], and qualified in 15th one-and-a-half seconds slower than 14th placed Raikkonen. Kubica nearly made it into Q3 and David Coulthard and Giancarlo Fisichella were eliminated as well.

Heikki Kovalainen set the fastest time early on in Q3, but was beaten by Sebastian Vettel, whose time remained unchallenged for the rest of the session. Felipe Massa struggled and qualified sixth. Mark Webber qualified third place, ahead of Vettel's teammate Sébastien Bourdais.

Race

The rain continued to fall on Sunday before the race, and with treacherous conditions and standing water in places on the track, the race was started behind the Safety Car. Jenson Button and Kazuki Nakajima elected to start from the pit lane. Sébastien Bourdais stalled on the grid, and by the time his pit crew had managed to restart his car, he was already a lap down. On Lap 3 the Safety Car pulled off and the race began proper, with Sebastian Vettel opening up a two-second advantage over Heikki Kovalainen after one green-flag lap. After ten laps, the gap had increased to seven seconds.

On Lap 13, Giancarlo Fisichella rear-ended David Coulthard when attempting to pass at the first chicane, damaging his front wing. The front wing broke off just before the Parabolica, getting stuck underneath the car, and sending Fisichella across the gravel into the tyre barriers. Vettel was the first to pit, on Lap 23. By this time Lewis Hamilton had passed Räikkönen, Fisichella, Coulthard, Kubica, and Glock; and benefitting from his one-stop strategy, he moved to third place after the first round of pit stops from the two-stoppers. After he made his first stop he dropped back to seventh.

The rain stopped about halfway through the race, and soon afterwards it became necessary to change from extreme-wets to intermediate tyres. All the two-stoppers changed to intermediates at their second stops, and nearly all the one-stoppers had to pit for a second time to change to intermediates, which ended not only Hamilton's chance at victory, but also the chances of some drivers to score points, such as Rosberg and Jarno Trulli.^[7]. However, those who had left their stops a little later such as Kubica & Alonso timed the switch to intermediates perfectly with their scheduled stops and rocketed up the order as a result.

Hamilton began to lose pace towards the end of the race, having excess tyre wear,^[7] and had to defend against Webber for 7th place. Two laps before the end of the race, Nakajima and Coulthard clashed at the Parabolica leaving debris from Coulthard's front wing across the track, which Massa ran over on the next lap. Vettel had a twelve-second advantage over Kovalainen when he crossed the finish line to earn his, and Toro Rosso's, first ever Formula One victory.

Classification

Qualifying