MPH: Mark Hughes on...

Sebastian Vettel's Italian Grand Prix victory for Toro Rosso brought a warm, feel-good reaction. His immensely likeable personality made his record-breaking youngest GP victory even more pleasing.

He's a breath of fresh air in his natural, funny outlook. There's nothing of the prima donna about him, nor any of the corporate blandness that afflicts a lot of the others. Asked silly questions, he gives silly answers - then gets the giggles. But even those silly answers often show the spark of a sharp mind.

For instance, asked about his views on vegetarians, he said he didn't like them - because they stole the food from his steak! Asked about his choice of music, he straight-faced said German folk music - because he so liked the lyrics. Cue another giggling fit. Then instead of going off to college, he climbs into an F1 car and blitzes the best in the world, at Monza, in the rain.

Team formerly known as Minardi

The past travails of the team formerly known as Minardi made it a fairytale day for them too - and there was something very satisfying about a team with 175 employees thrashing outfits with five times that number. Some people have been there since Minardi made their 1985 F1 debut. Think of that: 23 years of turning up with barely a sniff of glory, toiling onto the next race, knowing you're hopelessly outclassed, but pushing on and doing your best anyway.

What a fantastic reward Monza was for those guys - and it could not have come at a more appropriate venue for the Faenza-based team.

But once the celebrating has died down, it left F1's customer car question hanging in the air. Yes, full credit to Toro Rosso, and technical director Giorgio Ascanelli, for getting such a good understanding of the car and making so many right calls.

But the fact remains, had Toro Rosso been required to pay for the design and development rather than just the production costs, there's no way they could have afforded it. They are at a huge advantage over other independent outfits such as Force India and Williams. They get a ready-made semi-competitive car - and all they have to do is run it well.

As things stand, the team has one more year of grace before having to design and build its own car for 2010. The F1 powers made a U-turn on their policy after realising that were it to continue, smaller constructors would probably go out of business.

Without the funding to produce cars as competitive as the factory teams, smaller independents would be pushed to the back of the grid by the factories and their customers. Taken to extremes, might a situation not have arisen where two or three factories could produce competitive cars - and all the customer outfits bought from those teams, leaving other factory teams embarrassingly uncompetitive? Where that might have led was to a CART-like scenario of a few years ago, with a couple of constructors and a load of customers. That's not F1.

So let's enjoy Monza for what it was, and even hope Toro Rosso can achieve more success in the time left as a customer team. Let's also recognise what a great little team they are. There are reasons for their success other than their customer status and Ferrari engines. Guided by Ascanelli, they have opted for a different aero/weight distribution philosophy than Red Bull, one that seems to work better.

The Red Bull RB4 probably has the most forward-biased weight distributions of all. Forward weight is the recent buzz concept, taking the strain off the overworked rear tyres, trying to get load into the reluctant-to-heat-up fronts - and allowing for a forward-biased aero distribution that's less draggy than a rear-biased one.

It seems this season Ascanelli felt the design was going too far in that direction. The parts he chose were not the same as the main team's. The car is not as forward-biased in its aero distribution as the RB4 and partly as a consequence it brakes more securely into corners and gets its power down better out of them.

Honed-in-the-field savvy

There's also very little software to get confused by. Instead there is the honed-in-the-field savvy of Ascanelli. As everyone calculated the optimum strategy for Monza based on their trick software, Giorgio asked: why not do a very short first stint? With rain forecast, the better qualifying positions will help with visibility and if the rain eases off - as was forecast - then the wet weather tyres are going to go off quite early.

With a Vettel first stint four laps shorter than everyone else's, it worked to perfection. Once he'd stopped, his new wets were much quicker than the worn ones on Heikki Kovalainen's McLaren, more than offsetting the heavier fuel load. Job done, as it turned out.

Giorgio walked the Valencia track a few weeks ago and noted how much more sand was on it than expected. "We must change the set-up," he said to the team. "But, the simulations say not," they countered. "Yes, but does your computer have sand in it?" There's a lot to be said for such intuitive calls.