Former Minardi team owner Paul Stoddart has insisted that Sebastien Vettel's stunning victory for Toro Rosso in the Italian Grand Prix was no fluke and 'had been coming'.

Stoddart sold the Minardi squad to Red Bull back in 2005 as the popular back-markers bowed out of the sport, having long battled to remain on the grid despite running on a shoestring budget compared to its rivals.

Indeed, despite being on the grid for more than 20 years, Minardi picked up just 38 points before Stoddart was forced to call it a day, with the newly-named team suddenly able to benefit from funding from Red Bull supremo Dietrich Mateschitz.

Since then, Toro Rosso has made strides forward up the grid despite still being one of the smallest teams on the grid, with a number of personnel having remained from the Minardi days.

Recent strong form left the team well placed heading to Monza and while some have insisted that Toro Rosso was able to benefit from the conditions and the strength of the Ferrari engine in the STR3, Stoddart insisted that the victory was no fluke.

"This has been coming for a while, this isn't just a one-off," he told Reuters. "Nobody can say that Toro Rosso won that grand prix because of the rain or because everybody else fell off.

"BMW-Sauber won a race this year because many of the other runners had fallen off. Minardi [Toro Rosso] won the race with them all still there."

Stoddart added that the victory was something of a dream for the team, which would have celebrated a points finish as if it were a victory just a matter of years ago.

"Am I surprised? Well, they've got the budget now that I never had," he said. "Giancarlo [Minardi] was one of the first ones I texted and that was pretty emotional. You know how hard we fought for just points and now with a better budget and a damn good car they can fight for a victory.

"That is something that dreams are made of. I'm glad I wasn't there as I'd probably have had a heart attack. But it was so good for them. It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people."