Jenson Button, Fernando Alonso, Stefano Domenicali, Felipe Massa
By Erik Nielsen
Photos courtesy and copyright Ferrari Media
When it comes to F1, there are certain expectations that the fans have. Racing in England will usually be interrupted by rain. Monaco’s harbor will have ridiculous boats in the harbor (with even more ridiculously thin women wearing not much more fabric than a handkerchief on them prancing around on said yacht) and Ferrari should win any race at Monza.
Fortunately, the latter did happen this year and regardless of what happens in the championship, the Tifosi will not protest and life in Italy will continue.
The fans did get a scare when Alonso did was not able to carry his pole position into the lead come turn one, with Jenson Button taking advantage of a slower start when the lights went out, but the Spaniard was able to pass his rival during a well timed pit stop to retake the lead and convert pole into a win. The drive wasn’t a brilliant one, nor was one that will be mentioned extensively in the record books, but it certainly not an ugly win. The press will also look kindly on this win now that the team has been cleared of serious wrongdoing on the team orders side to have allowed Alonso to pass his team mate several weeks ago. Had Massa won this race, that story would have been different. The margin of victory at the end of the race will be captured in the record books as only 2.9 seconds, but with the weaving and calibration, it really was on the order of five seconds towards the end. There was no way that Button was going to challenge for the win. Once the Italian national anthem was played for the constructor’s win, the fans could go home happy.
Fernando Alonso, Felipe Massa
Button would finish second and Massa in third. After the podium, there really wasn’t anyone else in the running.
Autodromo Nazionale Monza is one of the fastest tracks on the current F1 calendar and unlike Montreal, is not extremely hard on brakes. There is a balance between downforce and drag and most tend to lean towards the low downforce/low drag side of the equation for the weekend. Wings are small and the cars tend to get a bit squirley in the turns. But it still doesn’t lead to exciting racing. The race itself was rather uneventful and would likely have been better for most fans to be watched on Tivo, with the right thumb on the fast forward button. You would not have missed much.
Fernando Alonso
The only real excitement on the track was on lap one and turn one. Variante del Rettifilo is more a chicane than a proper turn, but when the entire grid tries to go through, it get interesting. For about ten seconds. Button beat Alonso to the turn, but did manage not to take each other out. The same could not be said for points leader Lewis Hamilton who tangled with Massa and came out on the short end of the stick. Hamilton crashed out with a broken right front suspension and everyone put it in cruise mode. After that, it basically was a battle of the pit stops.
Sebastian Vettel drove a rather uneventful race, minus an extremely quick pit stop to finish in fourth place. Several members of the media have decided that the young German may be too immature and taking too many risks. After thinking about it more, I am reminded that nothing ventured, nothing gained. You do need to push if you want to be champion. No one has cruised to victory in a while. Hill did it when the Williams was so much better than the rest of the field, but that has been a while ago.
Rosberg beat Schumacher (again) to finish in fifth. More rumbling about over paying for points and not getting the money’s worth could be heard in muttered German. Webber finished in sixth, but it was not enough to really take advantage of Hamilton not finishing. Hulkenberg and Kubica finished in seventh and eighth, but no one really noticed.
Felipe Massa
Formula One is finished in Europe for the season, racing will be under the lights in Singapore in two weeks. The championship is now pretty much down to Webber, Hamilton, Alonso, Button and Vettel for the driver’s portion and Red Bull and McLaren for the manufacturer’s championship. Still too close to call out a winner, but it does seem like McLaren has their work cut out for them and Alonso is the long shot. We’ll see where things go next.
Race Results
| 1 | ALONSO | Ferrari | 1h16m24.572s |
| 2 | BUTTON | McLaren-Mercedes | + 2.9s |
| 3 | MASSA | Ferrari | + 4.2s |
| 4 | VETTEL |
RBR-Renault | + 28.1s |
| 5 | ROSBERG | Mercedes GP | + 29.9s |
| 6 | WEBBER | RBR-Renault | + 31.2s |
| 7 | HULKENBERG | Williams-Cosworth | + 32.8s |
| 8 | KUBICA | Renault | + 34.0s |
| 9 | SCHUMACHER | Mercedes GP | + 44.9s |
| 10 | BARRICHELLO | Williams-Cosworth | + 64.2s |
| 11 | BUEMI | STR-Ferrari | + 65.0s |
| 12 | LIUZZI | Force India-Mercedes | + 66.1s |
| 13 | PETROV | Renault | + 78.9s |
| 14 | DE LA ROSA | BMW Sauber-Ferrari | + 1 lap |
| 15 | ALGUERSUARI | STR-Ferrari | + 1 lap |
| 16 | SUTIL | Force India-Mercedes | + 1 lap |
| 17 | GLOCK | Virgin-Cosworth | + 2 laps |
| 18 | KOVALAINEN | Lotus-Cosworth | + 2 laps |
| 19 | YAMAMOTO | HRT-Cosworth | + 2 laps |
| 20 | DI GRASSI | Virgin-Cosworth | + 3 laps |
| 21 | TRULLI | Lotus-Cosworth | + 7 laps, gearbox |
| 22 | SENNA | HRT-Cosworth | + 42 laps, hyrdraulics |
| 23 | HAMILTON | McLaren-Mercedes | + 53 laps, accident |
| 24 | KOBAYASHI | BMW Sauber-Ferrari | + 53 laps, gearbox |
| Fastest Lap | ALONSO | Ferrari | 1m24.139s |
Note – Glock qualified 21st but dropped five grid places due to non-regulation gearbox work. Petrov qualified 15th but dropped five grid places after blocking Glock during Q1.
Driver’s Championship Standings
| 1 | WEBBER | RBR-Renault | 187 Points |
| 2 | HAMILTON | McLaren-Mercedes | 182 Points |
| 3 | ALONSO | Ferrari | 166 Points |
| 4 | BUTTON | McLaren-Mercedes | 165 Points |
| 5 | VETTEL | RBR-Renault | 163 Points |
| 6 | MASSA | Ferrari | 124 Points |
| 7 | ROSBERG | Mercedes GP | 112 Points |
| 8 | KUBICA | Renault | 108 Points |
| 9 | SCHUMACHER | Mercedes GP | 46 Points |
| 10 | SUTIL | Force India-Mercedes | 45 Points |
| 11 | BARRICHELLO | Williams-Cosworth | 31 Points |
| 12 | KOBAYASHI | BMW Sauber-Ferrari | 21 Points |
| 13 | PETROV | Renault | 19 Points |
| 14 | HULKENBERG | Williams-Cosworth | 16 Points |
| 15 | LIUZZI | Force India-Mercedes | 13 Points |
| 16 | BUEMI | STR-Ferrari | 7 Points |
| 17 | DE LA ROSA | BMW Sauber-Ferrari | 6 Points |
| 18 | ALGUERSUARI | STR-Ferrari | 3 Points |
Constructor’s Championship Standings
| 1 | RBR-RENAULT | 350 Points |
| 2 | McLAREN-MERCEDES | 347 Points |
| 3 | FERRARI | 290 Points |
| 4 | MERCEDES GP | 158 Points |
| 5 | RENAULT | 127 Points |
| 6 | FORCE INDIA-MERCEDES | 58 Points |
| 7 | WILLIAMS-COSWORTH | 47 Points |
| 8 | BMW SAUBER-FERRARI | 27 Points |
| 9 | STR-FERRARI | 10 Points |