At their home Grand Prix in Monza, Italy, Scuderia Toro Rosso achieved their best qualifying results of their time in Formula One to date, at the same time, Sebastian Vettel becomes the youngest ever pole sitter in Formula One history, at the age of 21 years and 73 days, having achieved his first pole position in his Formula One career, in just 22 starts.

In the rain drenched qualifying session, both Scuderia Toro Rosso's made it through to the final top 10 qualifying session, where Sebastian Vettel set a time of 1:37.555 which was good enough for pole position, not far behind him was his Scuderia Toro Rosso team mate, Sebastien Bourdais, who recorded a time of 1:38.445, which was good enough to give him fourth place on the grid for the Italian Grand Prix.

Lining up between Vettel and Bourdais on the grid will be Heikki Kovalainen in second position and Mark Webber in third. The wet qualifying also saw some big names struggle, with the likes of Lewis Hamilton, Kimi Raikkonen and Robert Kubica who all failed to make it through to the shootout for pole position.

Sebastian Vettel:

"It will take time for this to sink in. It was my dream to one day drive a Formula 1 car and even if my target now has been to fight for poles and race wins, I didn't expect it today and it feels fantastic. Doing it here in Italy is also amazing. There are two Italian teams, Ferrari is the bigger one, but I think today, people will also know about Scuderia Toro Rosso. Already it's great just to be part of Formula 1, but to be sitting in the top spot is fantastic. It was very difficult to see anything out there and I think all the drivers did a good job to avoid any incidents. We improved the car a lot and I was very happy with it this morning and when you feel confident in your car, then that is the key. In the second session, conditions were very difficult and I managed to put together a good lap quite early. I think we did the right thing to go out and do a few laps, rather than just focus on trying for one quick one."

Sebastien Bourdais:

"It was a bit crazy out there. Seb pulled out a great lap and pole is fantastic for him and the team and so is having both cars on the two front rows. I was third for a moment, but I'm not complaining. Given how things went in the dry in practice, I certainly could not have hoped for better than this. These conditions equalize everything and if you have a good feeling in the car, you can attack. That's what we did and it paid off. The team has given us a car that is very reliable and quite easy to drive, especially in the wet. A super performance from everyone."

Gerhard Berger:

 "A fantastic result and particularly special here at Monza."

 

 

 

View a Printer Friendly version of this Story.

Bookmark or share this story with:

• Digg
• Delicious
• Facebook
• Reddit
• Stumbleupon

SPORTNETWORK SPECIALS

• Think you know your sport? Click here to try the Sportnetwork Prize Quizzes

Honda Racing F1 Poll