Watching Scuderia Toro Rosso technical director Giorgio Ascanelli walking to the grid shortly before the Valencia race on Sunday, you just knew from the wide grin etched on his face what he was thinking.
He was loving the fact that F1's first venture into its brave new world of street circuits gave us a glimpse of how old school brainpower still has room to triumph in the end.
The way that Sebastian Vettel with the fairly small Scuderia Toro Rosso team upstaged some of the big guns to prove that solid engineering, a feel for racing, and a bit of trust and intelligence can overcome expensive simulation work and the might of computer boffins, was great to see.
![]() Sebastian Vettel inspects the Valencia street circuit © XPB |
In the build-up to the first race around Valencia, a lot of the grid had spent time in simulators getting to know the track.