Sebastian Vettel’s brief scare in the middle of the Italian GP was caused by the brake pedal not returning fully.
Vettel first reported what he felt to be an apparent loss of power when he got up to seventh gear coming out of Parabolica to start lap 20. He continued to suffer later round the lap, and was passed by team mate Mark Webber at Ascari.
The problem then cleared itself almost as quickly as it had appeared, and he did not have any more issues with the pedal for the remainder of the race. The telemetry told the team that there was slight brake pressure applied during that lap, despite Vettel having his foot off the pedal.
One RBR team member such an occurrence is rare but not unprecedented given the tight confines of the pedal area of the cockpit.
Despite the problem he was ultimately able to get back in front of both Webber and Nico Rosberg with the unusual strategy of staying out on his original tyres until the last lap.
Adam Cooper F1 
Great recovery drive from Vettel and great strategy from the pit crew.
I don’t understand how a brake failure could slow the engine down though.
It wasn’t a brake failure but a sticking pedal. i.e. the brakes not being fully released. This would quite clearly slow the car down (and explain why Seb thought he had less power) as it would be like trying to accelerate whilst still having the brakes on.
Still it was a great bit of strategy by the Red Bull team to get him in so late and good driving by Vettel to make his tyres last (although it also highlights the fact that the current tyres are actually too good)
Vettel simply felt the car going slower because the brakes were partially applied when he was accelerating. His instinctive reaction was that he had lost power, but obviously the engine was fine.
Please, it was just a pre-arranged and very clever team order to maximize points for Webber…
Oh come on be serious…
Well done Alonso, but isn’t it a shame that in a season where we’ve seen a return to pure racing and overtaking, that yet another F1 win was decided by a pit stop? Good that we got rid of fuel stops for this year, now if we could only get rid of mandatory tyre stops, there might have a chance of returning Grand Prix racing to how it was designed to be. We end up on all these forums talking about rules and strategy. With all that talent on the grid at present , I am f—ing fed up with watching races decided by a guy with a computer in a garage.
Wasn’t it shocking that one set of tyres on Seb’s car actually lasted, but for one lap, a whole race distance. How the hell did that slip through the ‘show’ guidebook? I wonder what kind of racing we’d have if they didn’t ‘have’ to pit, and what a fantastic advertisement for the tyre company that’d be. I know this is pretty radical but they could advertise their product’s durability, strength, resistance to wear, advanced construction materials, race proven tyres that you can rely on, etc; etc… Oh c’mon, stop dreaming Leo, what do you expect from F1 – progress? Racing?