Vettel hails 'unbelievable' Italian GP win

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Record-breaker Sebastian Vettel called his maiden Formula One victory "the best day of his life" after dominating the Italian Grand Prix.

The 21-year-old became the youngest race winner in the sport's history with a drive of speed and skill in treacherous conditions at a rain-lashed Monza.

Starting from pole position but behind the safety car, the Toro Rosso man stretched out an early lead and never looked back, winning by 12.5 seconds from McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen, with BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica in third.

"Unbelievable," exclaimed Vettel, who beat Fernando Alonso's youngest-winner record by almost a year.

"It is better than I had ever expected. The lap back to the pits and the whole podium ceremony was just unbelievable.

"These pictures, these emotions, I will never forget. I think for sure this is the best day of my life."

Vettel put his pace down to a dry-weather set-up on his car, which allowed him to be quick when the rain relented later on.

And the German made his second pit stop at exactly the right time, switching from wet-weather tires to intermediates for the rest of the race.

"The safety car helped me and being first and having no visibility problems at all was the key and I could make quite a good solid gap of about six to seven seconds to Heikki straight away," he added.

"In the last stint I was in a very good position. I stayed a bit longer than Heikki and he put on the intermediate tires, so I was on the radio talking to my engineer and he said, 'it is fine, let's go for inters.'

"The whole race we had no problems. A perfect weekend -- pole position, race win, unbelievable."

Realizing he should not have been beaten by a Toro Rosso to the win, Kovalainen was sheepish in accepting his trophy on the podium and far from happy afterwards.

"I feel we should have won," said the Finn. "I didn't have enough grip to go any faster, it was as simple as that. It was quite difficult, to be honest, all the way through the race. It was not possible to find any more.

"But congratulations to Sebastian and Toro Rosso, they were very strong all the way through the weekend."

While the usually chirpy Kovalainen was subdued, Kubica was satisfied with turning 11th on the grid into six world championship points.

"It was quite a good weekend after qualifying, which didn't go like we were we expecting," said the Pole.

"I think we did the right choice and I stayed out as long as possible until my pit stop and then we were a bit lucky that the conditions allowed us to put on intermediate tires so I made up quite good pace and closed the gap to Heikki, but he was too far away."

In the championship fight, Ferrari's Felipe Massa could only manage sixth, one place ahead of Lewis Hamilton, whose drive from 15th on the grid to seventh in his McLaren was a race highlight.

Hamilton now leads Massa in the standings by one point with four races -- and an appeal over his Belgian GP result -- to go.