Every so often, motorsport produces a winner that just leaves you shaking your head in amazement at how they did it; Zanardi's real 'pass in the grass' on Herta at Laguna Seca in 1996, Larry Perkins in the 1995 Bathurst 1000 after being a lap down (no lucky dog rule in V8's so he did it the hard way), Barrichello's victory at Hockenhiem, Kyle Busch at Darlington this season...believe me, I could go on.

Well, the 2008 Italian Grand Prix gave us a new name to add to that list. Not since...well, long before I was watching F1 anyway, the teams had a wet Monza to deal with. Now, Monza in the dry is a rather hairy ride; zero downforce with three big stops and any track in the wet all but guarantees the form book be chucked out for the weekend so why should this one be any different?

Initially it wasn't. More often than not in the past couple of seasons, Scuderia Toro Rosso have been mighty quick whenever Mother Nature steps in to level out the playing field then fade during the race due to it being dry. We saw glimpses of how good Sebastian Vettel may one day be when he stepped in for Robert Kubica at Indy last season and when he ran as high as third at Fuji until taking out himself and (sort of) teammate, Mark Webber, behind the safety car. But this year has seen the young German's stock only rise...so much so that there were whispers of him joining Ferrari before being signed to replace David Coulthard at Red Bull. He's a rather likeable guy as well, polite, makes time to sign stuff for fans, answers media questions (and even thanks them at the end of the interview)...as Martin Brundle said on the coverage of the race; he might be ruining the reputation of drivers everywhere.

Vettel at the wheel of his #15 Toro Rosso.

After swimming his way to being the youngest ever driver to nab a pole yesterday, Sunday dawned with grey skies and umbrellas out...the perfect conditions for a classic race as title favourite, Lewis Hamilton, had to work his way from 15th on the grid having made a hash of qualifying and we all saw at Silverstone how good Lewis can be in wet conditions. But the story was always going to be how long Vettel could hold off Kovy and whether Hamilton would pass Massa to increase his championship lead.

The answer was a simple one in the end; never...to both scenarios. It would be akin to, for arguments sake, the Wood Brothers winning the Coke 600 (which, given their current form, I think most would agree that luck would be required in big doses for that to happen).

Heikki's McLaren didn't even look remotely possible of hanging with Sebastian as whenever he closed down the gap, Vettel responded the very next lap and while Lewis looked capable of passing Felipe in the final third of the race, he had used up the best performance his inters had to offer and actually slipped back into the clutches of the eighth placed man, Mark Webber. So really, the only question was whether Vettel's car would hold together to collect not only his, but also the teams first ever win. From 1985 to 2005, Minardi were known as 'the other Italian F1 team' and always loitering at the back of the grid. Only once in their history did they qualify on the front row.

Sebastian became the youngest ever F1 winner.

Cue a new owner in the form of Gerhard Berger who changed the team into Toro Rosso from 2006 who, when it became clear that BMW were going to break from Williams to join Sauber, managed to secure Ferrari engines for the team. All that meant the stage was set for Ferrari to win again in Italy...just not in the way it was expected. Sebastian drove fantastically well and while he got lucky as conditions changed enough to switch from the monsoons to the inters at the time of his final stop, I don't think anyone would begrudge the little team from Faenza of their moment in the sun...and if anyone does, well I guess they just don't appreciate it when David slays Goliath.

Can you say "Lewis who?" Hail the new rainmaster in Formula 1; Sebastian Vettel.

I had thought that jbroomy or bc525 would have been all over this one but I suppose I'll do the honours instead.

Last weekend saw two major milestones reached in motorsport; not only did NASCAR finally decide to hold a race in the rain (and yes, I am peeved that they'll refuse to do it for the Cup series if Chad Knaus' report on 'TWIN' had a shred of truth to it), but we also had the 100th different winner in F1 history.

Heikki Kovalainen, aka 'Kovy', was the lucky driver in more ways than one.

He put in a great qualifying lap to start second behind his teammate, and Championship leader, Lewis Hamilton but at the Hungaroring, that means the dirty side of the track. Indeed, Felipe Massa's Ferrari got the jump on both McLarens and took the lead going into turn one with Kovy settling into third...and a rather lonely race for the Finn had begun.

Kovalainen became the 100th different driver to reach the top step of the podium.

Now, some drivers have no winning luck at certain tracks; Dale Earnhardt at the Daytona 500, Michael Schumacher at the Australian GP, Glenn Seton at Bathurst, Rubens Barrichello at Interlagos and Kimi Raikkonen at Hockenheim just to name a few (dare I add Marcos Ambrose at Montreal to that list?). However, Felipe Massa tends to have more than his fair share of bad luck than most (although, some of his retirements are down to brainfades mind you...not good if he wants to win the title one day) and around Hungary, that 'luck factor' is even worse as he hadn't had a good points race there in his entire career.

That was set to change on Sunday as not only did he manage to get the jump on Lewis at the start, but he was able to slowly build his lead over the next 40 odd laps before he could cruise when Hamilton got a puncture on his left front tyre (either from flat spotting or debris, I'm not sure) with 29 laps to go (70 lap race by the way). At that time, Felipe's lead over Kovy was around 23 seconds and it looked a forgone conclusion that Massa was about to retake the Championship lead as Lewis had to work his way through the field for the second straight race. However, the racing Gods had something else in mind and as Felipe came down the front straight to start lap 68, his Ferrari V8 engine let go in a huge cloud of smoke and his race was over.

And so, that left Kovy to pick up the pieces and secure his first grand prix victory. The Finn, in just his second season finally broke through and repaid the faith Ron Dennis showed by replacing Fernando Alonso, the man who had won the 2005 and 2006 titles, with him. Now, I pretty much expected Kovy to struggle against Lewis this season since Lewis had all of 2007 to get used to 'the McLaren way', but now that he has that first win, his confidence at a title shot in 2009 would have been significanlty boosted.

As for the luckless Massa...well, he can take heart in the fact that his teammate came from further back this time last year to win the Championship so all is not lost yet.

All right, the court has made their decision regarding the spying scandal that has threatened to rock the 2007 Formula 1 season...actually, you can cut that 'threatened to' out now since here is what they ruled against McLaren;

- fined US$100 million (no, that isn't a misprint)
- lost all points in the 2007 Constructor's Championship

That's it...so let's see how this will affect it starting with the fine. Now, not being involved in Formula 1 except as a fan, I can't say if this is true or not, but the accepted practice is that if you want to compete at the top level in the sport, you need around $400 million a year so a quarter of that is a big deal since McLaren still have to pay their employees for the rest of the year.

The points...honestly, McLaren got lucky with this. Yes, they can't win the Constructor's title, but the FIA could have hit them much harder; the Driver's Championship.

Yet they didn't, both Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso get to keep all their points and that gap between them and the two Ferrari drivers remain the same as it was after Monza last week. Now, if the FIA really wanted to make a statement, they'd have cut that title as well, but they didn't...and one must wonder why.

For, if McLaren actually did use the stolen data, then the drivers have benefitted from it as well. The reason is very simple; Lewis Hamilton is leading the Championship.

Yep, you heard me, I reckon that the FIA didn't want to do anything that could further damage the sport since Lewis has dragged a lot more people into the sport this year due to his amazing performances. And why wouldn't he? I mean, it's been a long time (1996) since England has had a consistant winner (David Coulthard is Scottish remember) and he's a rookie to boot so there was always going to be huge interest in how he was doing, particularly since he was going to drive for a premier team.

It will be interesting to see whether McLaren appeal the result (as Ferrari did a couple months ago leading to this court hearing) and how it affects their performance in Belgium this weekend.

One thing is certain though...$100 million makes those NASCAR fines rather pathetic doesn't it.