After a lights-to-flag victory for Jenson Button at Spa Francorchamps, the Briton praised the evolving performance in the McLaren MP4-27 and vowed to savor the win and build upon the momentum to challenge for the championship title. After being taken out on the first turn of the first lap, championship-leading Fernando Alonso's premature retirement from Spa was a missed opportunity for Scuderia Ferrari to demonstrates its rejuvenated pace.
Race teams arrived to Monza this past weekend with mixed agendas. As the Italian Grand Prix is Ferrari's home circuit, the Prancing Horse had more to prove than most. However, McLaren would set the early tone when Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button's blistering qualifying laps locked out the front grid. Remarkably, it would be Ferrari's #2 driver, Felipe Massa, that would come closest to challenging McLaren, qualifying third. Paul di Resta of Force India qualified fourth, and Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel, NIco Rosberg, Kimi Raikkonen, Kamui Kobayashi, and Fernanda Alonso, who suffered mechanical issues during Q3, round out the top-10 qualifiers.
Rumors of Felipe Massa's departure from Ferrari have been looming for a number of Grands Prix already and the Brazilian driver is doing everything he can to disprove his doubters and convince the Ferrari team that he belongs. Once the lights were off, Massa immediately positioned for an ambitious lunge into Rettifilio to challenge the McLarens. Unfortunately, the pace of the McLaren proved too difficult for the rest of the grid to keep up.
While Lewis Hamilton controlled the race out in front, real racing went on from behind. Unfazed by the poor result during Q3, Fernando Alonso was determined to pull back to the front of the pack. In seven laps, Alonso would pass fellow world champions including Kimi Raikkonen and Michael Schumacher before challenging Sebastian Vettel.
Entering Curva Grande, Alonso committed to an attack on Vettel that placed him haphazardly on some patchy grass. Although the heart-stopping moment didn't lead to an incident, Alonso was certainly enraged and the Ferrari team filed a complaint against Vettel for forcing Alonso off the road despite Vettel's appearance of merely holding the racing line around the corner. In fact, the move was reminiscent of a similar exchange between the two drivers last season, albeit the roles have reversed.
Following an investigation, the stewards deemed a drive-thru penalty against Vettel was in order for "forcing another car off the road." The drive-thru would cause Vettel to rejoin farther down the grid but, unfortunately, it wouldn't be Vettel's largest setback during the Monza weekend. After only four laps since he rejoined the grid, Vettel would receive a message from the Red Bull team urgently advising him to stop his RB8 immediately. According to the mechanics, an alternator failure threatened to cause catastrophic damage to the V8 engine supplied by Renault.
An unwelcomed DNF for the Red Bull team was followed by a fuel pump failure for Jenson Button. Rounding the Parabolica on lap 33, Alonso capitalized on the misfortunes of the other drivers and moved up into 3rd and into podium position. Naturally, Felipe Massa surrendered his position for Ferrari's #1 driver, securing Fernando Alonso a siver and some valuable championship points.
However, an impressive resurgence from Sergio Perez and his Sauber would challenge Alonso's and Massa's security. Having ran his first set of prime tires for a longer stint, Perez would re-emerge from the pits with a fresh set of soft options, enabling him and the Sabuer to pull off fastest laps and close in on the leaders.
Ferrari quickly radioed a message to warn Massa of Perez coming in from behind but eventually both the Ferraris would fail to hold back the strong Sauber. Even Lewis Hamilton was forced to respond to Perez' challenge and picked up his pace enough to gap the Sauber.3
As the race came to an end, McLaren celebrated consecutive victories after Button won at Spa and Hamilton followed suit in Monza. While Lewis won the gold, its Perez that won our hearts after a spirited stint in the last number of laps. Alonso's third place finish allows a decent points pull to keep him at the top of the title challenge while Massa's 4th place performance demonstrates his conviction as a team player for Ferrari. Next, Kimi Raikkonen finishes fifth to stay in the championship title hunt. In fact, Kimi might be the highest point scoring driver on the grid to not have won a grand prix this season. Michael Schumacher, Nico Rosberg, Paul di Resta, Bruno Senna, and Kamui Kobayashi round out the last of the top-ten Monza finishers.
One of the more exciting and historic races on the Calendar, teams now prepare to move on to Asia in two weeks time for the dazzling Singapore Grand Prix.
