BBV10s Debrief: Send us your thoughts on Monza 2008!
Added 2025-03-11 16:15:01 +0000 UTCLet's talk V8s! Send us your comments, observations and questions about our recent Bring Back V10s episode on the 2008 Italian Grand Prix, and host Glenn Freeman will sit down to work through them all soon.
Comments
Where do you thing the Toro Rosso STR3 ranks among the worst cars to win a Grand Prix? This is may be an unpopular opinion, but I question whether it was really that much worse than, say the 1998 Jordan or 2006 Honda by this point in the season, cars that don't tend to get cited as much in the "rubbish car wins a Grand Prix" lists as this one does. I wouldn't put on the level of the 1996 Ligier or 2020 Alpha Tauri, let alone the 2003 Jordan. Not to take too much away from Vettel, it was still clearly far from the quickest car in this race, his win owed a lot less to luck than any of the other cars I mentioned!
Patrick
2025-03-16 02:39:07 +0000 UTCThis was the first “classic” race I watched on F1 TV. I grew up a Vettel fan so I of course had to watch his first win. I feel like this should have been a turning point for Toro Rosso. How did they not become RedBull 2 down the road since at this point, they won a race before the sister team? I feel like in another timeline where Toro Rosso left Italy sooner, I could have been a lot closer to RedBull today.
The Ferrari Fan Club Podcast
2025-03-14 23:18:28 +0000 UTCThis was the 3rd year in a row I’d headed over to Italy and Monza for the Italian GP. My overriding memory of the weekend was actually the Friday practice, the clouds and the biblical downpour genuinely made it feel like it was nighttime, it was that dark. We huddled into the grandstand on the exit of Ascari, which soon gained a large bulge in the canvas roof where the water was pooling. On the Sunday we were on the exit of the Parabolica, and the whole race was surreal. It didn’t feel real. It did mean we were right under the podium for the surreal sight of a Toro Rosso winning
Keir
2025-03-13 18:53:07 +0000 UTCWe need 'bring back V8s'!
Andrew Simmons
2025-03-13 17:25:34 +0000 UTCExactly. I could have added a tremendous eyewitness account of being around the Toro Rosso garage straight after the race
Edd Straw
2025-03-13 03:44:44 +0000 UTCAnd the ridiculous penalty in Fuji, after he had beaten Vettel on merit.
Patrick
2025-03-13 00:14:13 +0000 UTCBourdais was the biggest tragedy of this race for me. Together with his loss of 4th in Australia & Spa, he had some appalling luck in 2008. We now also know how good Vettel was, so we should perhaps view Bourdais's F1 stint differently in hindsight.
Mark Martin
2025-03-12 18:21:51 +0000 UTCI remember him struggling to get heat into the tyres that year. That's why he struggled more in qualifying. His tyres were only getting up to heat properly near the end of stints
Mark Martin
2025-03-12 18:20:12 +0000 UTCLoved the deep dive on this race as I wasn't able to watch it live, ITV didn't show it in Ireland. Was absolutely raging that I missed 'Minardi' winning!
Jade Duffy
2025-03-12 17:29:38 +0000 UTCMonza 2008 is one of those races I will never forget. Vettel's win on a Toro Rosso Aka Minardi in the rain was absolutely epic and a presage of the years to come.
Manuel Adolfo Díaz Villa
2025-03-12 16:43:22 +0000 UTCDisclaimer here it was while ago and I am a Lewis Hamilton fan so I don’t know if what I’m saying has complete truth to it or if it’s purely fan vision but here goes. I seem to remember monza 2008 for being one of the few times we saw bad boy Lewis come out to play basically he used Kimis belligerent tactics from the previous race He forced Glock and Webber off the road to stop them re attacking him into the following chicane Normally I don’t condone such driving but I kind of turned a blind eye because I could sense how Lewis felt let down and frustrated Initially after the spa fiasco you would be hard pressed to find anyone outside Ferrari and Alonso who agreed with the outcome But by the time monza came around I seem to remember tv interviews with drivers and pundits (nico rosberg and Jackie Stewart were 2 from memory) u turning and falling into line with FIAs interpretation of fair play
Simracer Sam
2025-03-12 15:49:06 +0000 UTCWhen will we get a BBV10s Debrief to the Debrief? 😉 I'm taking the mick, I love the format.
Adam Barton
2025-03-12 15:30:08 +0000 UTCEvery time the commentators mentioned how amazing it was that the former Minardi team were leading, I kept thinking of PL Martini leading for a lap in Portugal in either ‘89 or ‘90 (during the pit stops). My question is what do you think caused Kovalainen’s mental meltdown after his win in Hungary? He should have been on the crest of a wave coming this race
Oscar Robledo
2025-03-12 14:49:21 +0000 UTCLooking nowadays it seems near on impossible to have such a wild performance swing, i.e. a midfield team suddenly on pole and winning. Was it really just down to toro rosso sending their young drivers out on friday to get a feel for driving in the wet. If that is the whole Trick, i'm absolutely baffled of how the top teams would be caught out so badly.
Ben
2025-03-12 10:33:27 +0000 UTCOne of the most striking things for me, looking back on that GP today, is how unattractive Seb’s car was; probably the worse he ever drove. Funny how I didn’t appreciate this at the time. I might miss the sounds of those V10s, but I don’t miss the bodywork from 2008.
Michael Holden
2025-03-12 09:25:29 +0000 UTCDid red bull realise what they had with Vettel prior to this race? I remember him being a standout in Fuji 07 until his incident with Webber but don’t recall thinking of Vettel as the next big thing before this performance.
Nicholas Langdon
2025-03-12 08:20:06 +0000 UTCAhhh that makes sense, thank you!
Liam Scully
2025-03-12 01:51:41 +0000 UTCI remember James Allen had his moments, I thought his commentary at Austria 2002 with the Ferrari team orders fiasco was spot on for example, but I recall I went off him in 2007 because I felt that he pushed Lewis Hamilton especially hard. While I got a sense of Murray Walker often favouring certain Britons as well, especially Nigel Mansell and Damon Hill, I never felt Murray was quite as overt or partisan about it, and it was often countered for me by Murray's evident respect and admiration for various other drivers including their chief rivals (Prost, Senna, M Schumacher). It was a collective thing, not just James Allen's commentary, but I remember thinking of 2007's F1 coverage as the Lewis Hamilton Show, and I was far from the only one at the time. But I certainly see a strong argument for James Allen having been underrated overall largely because Murray was such a tough act to follow and still loomed large in people's memories at the time.
Ian Simpson
2025-03-12 00:26:31 +0000 UTCDoes BMW letting Seb go to Red Bull rank as one of the biggest mistakes in F1 history? Notwithstanding BMW pulling out a couple of years later, Seb & Kubica would have been a serious driver pairing in 08 & 09
Derek Hourigan
2025-03-12 00:04:42 +0000 UTCFree engines for taking Kazuki Nakajima
Ishaan Bhardwaj
2025-03-11 22:44:47 +0000 UTCYou forget now, without refuelling, how tricky wet races were in that era. Teams really seemed loathed to bring their drivers in just to change tyres. Presumably if this race was run with todays regs McLaren just wait and see with what tyre to put on Lewis’s car and they then take the win without the extra stop?
Chris Parrott
2025-03-11 21:09:59 +0000 UTCHow do you think it would have gone if Vettel had driven for Ferrari in 2008? Monza wasn't a one of, as he drove excellent pretty much everywhere that season. Does he win the titel? Or perhaps it all goes the way of 2009 with far to many mistakes?
Benjamin
2025-03-11 20:07:03 +0000 UTCWas the Ferrari engine significantly more powerful than the Renault engine? Ignoring the reliability of the Renault it seems like the difference in performance between the 2 RB teams must have predominantly come from the power of the engines
Ed R Gaming
2025-03-11 19:39:03 +0000 UTCWhere does this win rank in the most impressive maiden victories of the grooved tyre era? The way Alonso, Button, and Hamilton won their first races were all incredible in different ways, but is there a case to argue Vettel tops them all?
Mathew McCarthy
2025-03-11 19:09:58 +0000 UTCWhen I was working as a journalist in 2020, I asked Steiner in Barcelona whether customer cars could be an option again in light of the ‘Pink Mercedes’ controversy, he laughed it off in a way, but unfortunately thanks to Covid I couldn’t follow up in Silverstone when I might have been able to come back. MotoGP makes it work to a point, but it’s something F1 should consider in the right circumstance as a new manufacturer perhaps, but not as a way to go racing full-time. Thoughts?
Stephen Camp
2025-03-11 18:49:32 +0000 UTCThe Williams Toyota partnership always seemed like an odd combo to me. Is there a reason why they chose to go with Toyota in the V8/post BMW era? I would've thought Renault might've been a better option
Liam Scully
2025-03-11 18:40:04 +0000 UTCThe only real question on this episode: why Edd was not on it? On ‘Minardi’ day of days???
Rol4nd86
2025-03-11 18:22:47 +0000 UTCKimi Raikkonen did the fastest lap on the last lap of the race and I recall there were more instances that season he did so. Any particular reason behind it apart from purely statistics?
Peter Selecký
2025-03-11 17:52:54 +0000 UTCIs saying Vettel won in a Minardi like saying Button won in a Tyrrell? (This might be a slightly tongue in cheek question)
Jake
2025-03-11 17:47:25 +0000 UTCWanted to know your thoughts on Sebastian Bourdais. Would he have got on better in F1 if he was with another team? He looked to have brilliant pace in this race, was such a shame he never got under way. Lost a potential p4 or higher here but it's also forgotten that he lost a P4 on his debut in Australia with 3 laps left when the engine blew. And the weekend before this race in Spa he was half a lap away from getting a podium. Maybe these performances were too sparse and it would not have mattered even if he was elsewhere on the grid or Vettel wasn't his team mate but I do think he was an underrated driver not given enough time by Helmut Marko. Not like his successor pulled up many trees either..
Aidan Dulohery
2025-03-11 17:25:38 +0000 UTCNo he didn't. He might have finished P2 with some strategy luck and without a second pitstop, though. See my comment below.
Philipp Eitzinger
2025-03-11 17:16:52 +0000 UTCWas mentioned in the episode, but did Bourdais really have the second fastest race time?
Adam Brewer
2025-03-11 17:13:24 +0000 UTCYeah. Regrettably, I didn't appreciate him at the time. I remember an interview where he was advised to be "the bloke who replaces the bloke who replaces Murray, not the bloke who replaces him". Unfortunately, his only crime was that he wasn't Murray
Simon Emms
2025-03-11 17:03:10 +0000 UTCJames Allen seems to be the bridging link between Murray and the current, and I feel like he gets short shifted by a lot of modern F1 fans.
Tarran Sanders
2025-03-11 17:01:45 +0000 UTCMy overriding memory of the end of the race was the realisation that we would hear the German and Italian anthems in the correct order. Also, James Allen's commentary on the last lap is up there with Murray's finest - I do think we underappreciated him at the time.
Simon Emms
2025-03-11 16:50:20 +0000 UTCI was 8 when this race happened, and my biggest memory is of the US-only broadcast team at the time (in my opinion, the peerless combination of Bob Varsha, David Hobbs, and Steve Matchett in the booth with Peter Windsor in the pits for the Speed Channel) joking about Toro Rosso probably not knowing the fuel rules for Q3 when Vettel went fastest in Q2. I know most F1 fans fondly remember Murray Walker, but as one of the few US F1 fans from this era those 4 were an integral part of me becoming an F1 fan. I enjoy the broadcast we get now, but sorely miss the color commentary of Varsha (and later Leigh Diffey), the driver analysis of Hobbs, the technical analysis of Matchett, and Windsor knowing everyone in the paddock during his grid walks (and ending every Flavio Briatore interview with “see you in the gym!”). There’s some very fun commentary highlights (particularly of David Hobbs and Steve Matchett) on YouTube that I would highly encourage folks to check out to see what F1 broadcasts were like over here before we started getting the Sky Sports feed in 2018.
Max Camposano
2025-03-11 16:47:07 +0000 UTCI remember thinking that the former Minardi team had a fantastic opportunity for points and in my head decided that this was going to be Bourdais' time to shine as his season was going down the Zarnardi of 1999 route at the time. I was wrong. Well apart from the team scoring big points.
Simon Pope
2025-03-11 16:41:52 +0000 UTCLooked at the laptimes. What would've happened had Bourdais started from P4? Considering his pace, he could well have stayed in P4, holding up the pack behind him (MAS, TRU, ALO, ROS, ...) and they'd all pitted before Bourdais did (lap 21), his pit stop was not great and he'd have fallen behind that pack to P12. From then on it depends whether he'd pit again. If not, Kovalainen would likely have come out just behind Bourdais when KOV made his second stop. Had Bourdais pitted again (which in reality he did), he'd have slotted in behind Webber in P9, just ahead of Kimi. As it was, once the race got going and both Toro Rossos clocked 51 laps under green, Bourdais lost 54 seconds to Vettel. In the 47 laps neither pitted, Vettel was quicker by 1,02 seconds on average.
Philipp Eitzinger
2025-03-11 16:40:41 +0000 UTCI do wonder if Red Bull in 2008 was more like the team it is today culturally, whether Vettel would have been promoted before the season end. Was there anything from the time of that being considered? Or I wonder if the team felt that the Ferrari engine was making a bigger difference than it was. After all, Monza wasn’t a complete one off - Seb’s results from round 12!onwards were consistently excellent and he thoroughly outperformed Webber and Coulthard
Rich Snape
2025-03-11 16:31:44 +0000 UTCi remember that weekend happened on at the same time as an ironman 70.3 triathlon my dad was doing and my family traveled together with him to where it was taking place, so my main memory of that race is being upset i didn't get to watch it in full at the hotel!
Skellingtor
2025-03-11 16:18:01 +0000 UTCNothing to say on the actual topic of the episode per se, but I do appreciate the kind words you have to the Dinner with Racers podcast. Considering a lot of the material you use for reference is European in focus and scope, it is nice to see Sean and Ryan get mentioned warmly from the other end.
Tarran Sanders
2025-03-11 16:16:56 +0000 UTCAnother great epiode do you think we was lookong at 4 times world champion
Andy Barber
2025-03-11 16:16:51 +0000 UTC
