Italian Grand Prix: A race of two halves...

It wasn't the most exciting of races in Monza. The race started well, with no shortage of excitement as drivers jostled for position, some making contact. Hamilton's race was damaged even more than by qualifying, as he went through the first corner. He drove over a couple of bits of carbon fibre and in a few laps was suffering with a slow puncture. After an early pitstop he was down to nineteenth and watching his race and Championship challenge disappearing.

It was a race for Red Bull to simply scoop up and chalk up as another first and second, however Sebastian Vettel could be seen to have damaged Mark's race, right at the start. Webber had one of his best starts in a long time, finally managing to get away from the grid faster than his teammate. The problem for Mark was Sebastian's aggressive defence, which allowed Felipe Massa to hurtle up the outside and take the second place. As they went through the first chicane Vettel was leading, with Massa following up in second and Webber having to defend against Alonso.

Vettel's win was well deserved, since there were times when he had to preserve the engine and gearbox by short shifting and easing off. Webber was unfortunate not to be able to beat Alonso to second place and it is worth considering that if Sebastian hadn't held him up he may well have made Red Bull's result a clean sweep.

After the start, the race settled in to a processional affair, with the threat of rain bringing a little hope that things might get mixed up. Rain stayed away and it took until around the forty-third lap of fifty-three for excitement to be injected back in to the event. Kimi Raikonnen and Lewis Hamilton, despite fighting it out for eleventh place, were fighting like their careers depended on it. Lewis eventually got past Kimi and then began forging his through the pack in the final laps to finish ninth and pick up some points.

The driver that suffered the most this weekend was quite obviously Paul Di Resta. After everything else that he had to deal with during practice and then qualifying, his race was over very quickly. He was involved in an incident, approaching the second chicane, in which he found himself in a tight spot, squeezed to the point that he lost his front wing and left front wheel. A torrid weekend for some, but a great weekend for Red Bull Racing, who may well have just about sealed the Championship.

The Result:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time
1.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull	1:18:33.352
2.	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	+5.467
3.	Mark Webber	Red Bull	+6.350
4.	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	+9.361
5.	Nico Hülkenberg	Sauber	+10.355
6.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	+10.999
7.	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso	+32.329
8.	Romain Grosjean	Lotus	+33.130
9.	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	+33.527
10.	Jenson Button	McLaren	+38.327
11.	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus	+38.695
12.	Sergio Perez	McLaren	+39.765
13.	Esteban Gutiérrez	Sauber	+40.880
14.	Pastor Maldonado	Williams	+49.085
15.	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	+56.827
16.	Adrian Sutil	Force India	+1 Lap
17.	Charles Pic	Caterham	+1 Lap
18.	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham	+1 Lap
19.	Jules Bianchi	Marussia	+1 Lap
20.	Max Chilton	Marussia	+1 Lap
Did not finish
21.	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso	+39 Laps
22.	Paul di Resta	Force India	+53 Laps