Vettel wins the Italian GP, Button second, Alonso third

Sebastian Vettel has won the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, ahead of McLaren’s Jenson Button and Ferrari’s double world champ Fernando Alonso. The reigning world champ was unusually emotional and shed some tears on the podium.

This means a lot to the German, as Monza is the place where he tasted his first pole and first victory back in 2008 for Toro Rosso. That win made him the youngest ever pole sitter and winner in F1. For Red Bull, today’s result is their first ever Italian GP win – last year’s fourth place was the team’s best ever at Monza.

Starting from pole (Red Bull has been on pole for every race so far this season), Vettel lost out in a three abreast battle with Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso; the Ferrari man made a super start to jump the front row cars.

Sitting in second, and clearly faster than the scarlet car, Vettel put pressure on Alonso and took the lead on lap 5 despite being pushed to the grass by the Spaniard, a lead that he never gave away till the finish. That was the last anyone saw of him, and today’s win was a comfortable one for the young champ.

Everyone else had to work harder, but none harder than Hamilton. Second on the grid, the Brit lost out in the three abreast battle to Seb and Fernando, with great starter Michael Schumacher right behind his tail.

There was some first corner drama when Tonio Liuzzi lost control of his fishtailing HRT and slid the length of the straight right into the first corner, collecting the innocent Vitaly Petrov (LRGP) and Nico Rosberg (Mercedes), who both retired. Barrichello was also caught in the melee, but managed to carry on. This brought out the safety car.

After the Gullwing dived in, Schumi passed Hamilton, and was a huge source of frustration for the McLaren man, who was faster in the bends, but couldn’t get past the Merc, which was faster on the straights. Michael used every trick in his thick book and every ounce of his rich experience to block Lewis. By now, Button, who had a poor start, was right behind the big scrap. Jenson passed both of them with ease on lap 17, though, and pushed ahead to catch Alonso.

It was now time for the first round of pit stops, but the order of BUT-MSC-HAM remained. Hamilton continued to push Schumi and finally succeeded on lap 28. But by now, his race was already ruined.

Things were looking brighter for Jenson, who overtook Alonso on lap 36 for second, a place he maintained till the end. Lewis must have been super relieved that he came out of his second pit stop ahead of Schumacher! Where’s Mark Webber? The Aussie collided with Felipe Massa early on in lap 5. Without a front wing, he fell out the following lap.

Further down the field, the sole Lotus Renault GP car of Bruno Senna had quite an active afternoon, overtaking a few other midfielders to finish ninth for some points. We didn’t see much of Jaime Alguresuari, but the Toro Rosso man did very well to finish seventh – great stuff for someone who started 18th on the grid! The Team Lotus boys finished 13th and 14th, both two laps down.

With today’s win, Vettel is leading the Driver’s championship over Alonso by 112 points. A further five points behind are Button and Webber. This means that there’s a possibility of Vettel wrapping up the title by the next race – Singapore – with six races to spare!

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