Fernando Alonso sent tifosi fans to heaven after his triumph at the Gran Premio Santander d'Italia proving his return on the championship chase. Moreover, It was the first victory in Monza for Ferrari since 2006 when Michael Schumacher won the race and the 2nd victory for Alonso since 2007 when he won the race for McLaren Mercedes disappointing the same fans who were thrilled with his victory this year. This time victory was not an easy task as he had to overtake F-Duct Jenson Button during the pit stops, who finished 2nd ahead of Alonso's teammate Felipe Massa in 3rd.
Although Alonso worked hard for the pole position, it was Jenson Button starting in the 2nd grid position who took the lead after the first corner achieving valuable aerodynamic momentum due to his F-duct specified car and for one more race the pole sitter was unable to retain his advantage. But, if Button was delighted with his start, the same could not be said of team-mate Lewis Hamilton who got it all wrong in an ambitious move on Felipe Massa. A contact with the Ferrari led him to a broken steering arm and to an immediate retirement.
Although his contact with Hamilton, Massa didn't experienced any consequent damage and he was driving head to head with Alonso in the back straight for the 2nd position. Yet Alonso pushed harder than Massa and retained his position. After all in the case that Massa had overtaken Alonso, he would had given his position back to him soon, but for Alonso staying in 3rd even for one lap would have cost him valuable time to chase Button.
Behind the leaders, the Red Bull duo of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber also lost ground at the start, dropping to sixth and ninth respectively as Nico Rosberg jumped up to fourth following Hamilton's retirement.
Alonso continued to press Button hard during the early stages trying to find a way through in every corner of the circuit. But with his higher downforce configuration working perfectly both through the corners and straights and his tyres on their peak performance Button began to look like controlling the race.
Alonso was determined to victory taking full advantage of Hamilton's retirement and RedBulls struggle but his only chance for overtaking proved to be during the pitstops session. Button's timing on lap 37 wasn't as good enough to return back on the lead when Alonso made his pitstop a lap later achieved a blistering pitstop time that threw him out of the pits just ahead of Button. The British ace tried to challenge Alonso back while his tyres where cold but Alonso retained his lead even when Massa tried to steal victory exiting the pits just behind of them. From that point Button decided to retain his 2nd position and Alonso cruised and pulled away by 2.9 seconds at the flag to score a huge triumph at Ferrari's home track of Monza delighting tifosi crowd who started admiring the Spanish ace even more that Schumacher forgetting completely the victories Alonso took against Ferrari in the past.
Fernando Alonso commented:
"It's something I can only compare with the feeling in 2006 winning in Barcelona, my home grand prix, because it was a very special moment that one, and it's a very special moment this one. So it's obviously a fantastic feeling. It was a very tough race with a very strong opposition today with a fantastic drive from Jenson and we tried to put both Ferraris in the first two positions but after the start it was difficult with Jenson's good start and good pace. I think the team did a fantastic job again with a fantastic pit stop and thanks to them we are sitting here because we made the overtake in the garage. We were thinking [of pitting] at the time to be honest. Obviously the possibilities were to come in one lap later or one lap earlier, we had to find the right choice in the right moment. When we saw Jenson coming we had the two choices and we decided we had one lap to push and we relied on the mechanics. The lap was more or less ok but the pit stop was superb."
Concerning Redbull drivers, the race was a case of damage limitation. Sebastien Vettel finished 4rth making his pitstop on the final lap although he looked like to have an engine failure early in the race that dropped him behind his team-mate. Many believe that his "instant failure" was just a matter of a pre-race agreement in an attempt to help Webber win some points when Hamilton was already out of the race. Title contender Mark Webber finished sixth after battles with Michael Schumacher, Robert Kubica and Nico Hulkenberg. The German rookie put up a good fight but at one point skipped the first chicane in his haste. Red Bull appealed to the stewards on Webber's behalf but the incident was dismissed. Eventually Webber passed Hulkenberg at the second chicane after a lap-long battle as the Williams continued to make mistakes. After the race Webber commented at BBC Sport:
"We underperformed as a team today and we could have capitalised on getting more points but instead we sniffed around just getting a few. It's a bit disappointing but at least we got some. We lost out at the start and a bit in the first lap and obviously we spent a lot of time behind Hulkenberg - he spent every second lap going through the chicanes. The stewards did a hard job on him by just leaving him alone, so that was interesting.
After a fanstastic start Nico Rosberg retained his pace and finished trouble-free 5th. Kubica finished eighth with a healthy 10 second margin over Michael Schumacher in 9th position and Rubens Barrichello secured the final point for Williams in 10th.
Struggling Hispania Racing have been fined $20,000 after one of their mechanics was injured while he was adjusting Sakon Yamamoto's radio. The mechanic was thrown to the ground when the lollipop mistakenly released Yamamoto from the pitbox and suffered injuries that sent ambulance into the pits closing the pitlane. Team boss Colin Kolles commented:.
"There was an incident with a member of our team during Sakon Yamamoto's pit stop. First aid was immediately on the spot and he was taken to hospital for further check-up. He remained conscious and was talking to the doctor. We wish that he will recover quickly."
The outcome or the race pushed once again Mark Webber on the championship lead by five points from Lewis Hamilton with Fernando Alonso jumping to third. However, the championship is again on fire, as Jenson Button's 2nd place is found only a point behind Alonso while Vettel in 5th place has only 2 points less than Button. Yet it seems that teams won't tolerate any other loss of points for their second drivers. it is clear that at least for the following last races of the season Webber, Hamilton and Alonso will have the full support of their teams. After all, the small gaps in the standings still leaves open a plan B for RedBull and McLaren who are fighting for the constructor's championship as well.
