Kubica: Vettel success no surprise.

Robert Kubica has suggested that no-one should be surprised to see Sebastian Vettel and Scuderia Toro Rosso at the front of the field in the Italian Grand Prix given the conditions that dominated the weekend.

Vettel took a breakthrough victory at Monza, coincidentally becoming the youngest ever winner of a grand prix, but while many would have expected success come to highly-touted German before too long, few would have thought that it would have been at the wheel of a Toro Rosso entry.

Kubica, however, insisted that Vettel, as well as having enormous natural talent, had benefited from being in the right car at the right time as rain, sometimes torrential, blighted the entire weekend in Italy.

"There is no secret now," the Pole, who finished third, claimed, "Everybody realises that some cars are performing better in the wet than some others. Toro Rosso and Red Bull have always been strong in the wet.

"If we look at last year or two years ago, even if they were far behind us in the dry, in the wet they were just right there. And now, in the last few races, Toro Rosso have even become the third or fourth team in dry conditions, very close [to BMW Sauber], even in front of us sometimes. As soon as it starts raining, they become the fastest..."

Despite the tone of his comments, however, Kubica was delighted to see one of Formula One's teams enjoy its 'moment in the sun' (so to speak).

"I really feel happy for the guys at Toro Rosso," he insisted, "I know many of the people there and they really did a great job - and they deserve it."

Third place for Kubica mirrored the result from his first F1 visit to Monza, but the Canadian Grand Prix winner admitted that it had been a much harder task to achieve in 2008 than it had two years ago.

"I could see nearly nothing at the start," he revealed, discussing conditions after the safety car had peeled off, "Approaching the first corner, I overtook [team-mate] Nick [Heidfeld] without seeing him. I just realised, when I braked, that he was behind rather than in the front. It was really incredible.

"It's not a problem if you start in the first three or four positions but, if you start in the middle or the back of the pack, you really have to watch out when we restart the race because it was extremely dangerous. Going through the Curva Grande to the second chicane, I was on half throttle, just waiting for somebody to hit me. It was really extremely bad, at least for us."

Once the field had spread itself a little over the opening laps, things became a little easier for those in the lower reaches, and the race then became a battle of wits over strategy.

"I made a big gap to those behind me and also in front of me, and I had a Toyota and Fernando [Alonso] two or three seconds in front of me, so I was able to maintain my pace," Kubica continued, "We faced some problems with the tyres when the track was drying up - with the heavy car, we started sliding quite a lot - but we were always driving with Fernando, at the same pace, and, once I made a mistake, once he made a mistake. Lewis [Hamilton] got by easily - he was much quicker, but I think we were a bit lucky that we stayed out longer.

"We just fitted the intermediates at the right moment, as we planned to stop on this lap and it worked out. We were the first car [missing] out of Q3, so the only positive thing was that we could choose our strategy looking at how the weather would be in the race and the conditions on the track. I think we did the right choice and I stayed out as long as possible until my pit-stop.

"We were a bit lucky that the conditions allowed us to put on intermediate tyres, so I made up quite good pace and closed the gap to Heikki [Kovalainen], but he was too far away. The last laps were just cruising, bringing the car home."