Sebastian Vettel awarded Trofeo Bandini

On the Thursday before Sebastian Vettel took his maiden F1 victory in Monza last year, the prestigious Trofeo Bandini, which honours the memory of the late Formula 1 driver, Lorenzo Bandini, had already nominated the German youngster as the winner of its top award for 2008.

So, this past Sunday, Vettel embarked on a very unusual journey to pick up the award, getting behind the wheel of the Toro Rosso F1 car at the Faenza factory, driving through the streets to the city square, before motoring a further 12 kilometres to Bandini?s home town of Brisighella. What made this different to the usual F1 show run was that the streets were open to normal traffic and the Sunday drivers couldn?t believe their eyes as a police escort moved them aside to make way for Vettel and the Formula 1 machine.?

Once in the square in Faenza, the Red Bull Racing driver obliged with literally hundreds of autographs and photos for the fans who?d braved the bad weather, because the only fly in the ointment was the rain which fell for much of the day, but then a few drops of rain have never stopped Seb from doing his best. He set off from the factory at such a pace, he soon lost the mechanics following on behind in a road car and there was some concern he might have gone the wrong way, but in the end it all went off according to plan.

Once in Brisighella, local dignitaries and members of the Bandini family were on hand to present the award, as was the mayor of Vettel?s home town Heppenheim, who had an additional award for the German driver ? a pair of personalised road car number plates: ?HPSV1.? You can decide for yourselves whether the HP stands for Heppenheim or Horsepower.

With a string of great performances driving for the Italian team last year, Sebastian really made a lot of fans in Italy. It will be interesting to see what reaction he gets when he turns up at Monza this year, driving for Red Bull Racing!