Vettel King Monza

The Italian Grand Prix in Monza started on the track with very little grip, as we experienced a rather strong storm before the start. The start procedure and warm-up lap went smoothly for all the racers, so the start was a bit more dramatic. Vettel pulled the best from the best starting position, followed by Massa, who shut down his teammate. Alonso thus remained fourth behind Webr and fifth Hulkenberg. Already in the fifth round, the Spaniard started attacking Webber, who also overtook him before the second chicane. It is also worth mentioning the collision of Perez and Raikkonen, where the latter planted him from behind and therefore had to get new front wings.

Interestingly, already in the sixth lap he started to overheat Hamilton’s Mercedes, causing him to start attacking him and also overtaking Button. There was also the expected exchange between Massa and Alonso, as the Brazilian said after the qualifiers that he would not keep Alonso in the Vettl hunt. The race somehow fell into a more monotonous happening, but not too much, as already in the twelfth lap Hamilton started to leak the front right tire, causing him to drive to a stop. A similar thing happened to Vettl, where both front tires overheated.

In the sixteenth lap, it is worth mentioning Vergno’s resignation, where the Ferrari engine probably failed. Still, Vettel drove his race, setting the fastest laps and slightly increasing his lead over Alonso and the others. We watched a fairly calm race until the twenty-second lap, and then the first stops began with Grosjean and Buttn at the helm. He also started speeding up Alonso against Vettl. In the twenty-fourth lap, Vettel had to stop, as did Webber. Alonso was just over four seconds behind Vettl. Interestingly, Alonso agreed on the radio to skip the stop, to which he was therefore seduced by Massa, who returned to the track behind Webbrom and in front of Raikkonen.

Alonso and Ferrari have obviously made a mistake in missing the stop if we look at the fact that Vettel was driving more than a second per lap faster than the Spaniard after the stop. Of course, let's not forget that there was a big difference between them, and both of them had at least one more stop in the pits. So Vettl's hunt for Alonso began. The mill horses at Ferrari quickly realized the mistake and therefore called Alonso for a tire change in the twenty-eighth lap. Fernando came on the track back just in front of Webber and quite far behind Vettl, trailing him by more than ten seconds.

One of the more interesting campaigns took place around the thirtieth round, where Hamilton and Hulkenberg took turns. In the Curve Grande turn, of course, Hamilton succeeded, as Hulkenberg drove on as many as 18 old tires. Around the fortieth lap, Raikkonen also drove very well, making good progress all through, but only finishing twelfth at the time. So the Finn picked himself up well after the introductory accident, when he had to change the front wings, and showed what kind of test he is from. Still, we’re more interested in what’s going on in the foreground, where Webber was chasing Alonso, but he couldn’t overtake him. Especially when fifteen laps before the end at Webber and perhaps also at Vettl the gearbox started to bother him, Alonso started to drift away from Webber, but he was too far behind Vettl to be able to make up the difference in just a few laps.

By the end of the race, the order had not changed significantly. Vettel thus came away with another victory and thus increased the advantage over the second Alonso in scoring the World Cup. Third place went to Webber ahead of Massa and Hulkenberg. Rosberg, Ricciard, Grosjean, Hamilton and Button are also among the top ten. It is worth mentioning, however, that Webber parked the car already on the starting finish line, and at Red Bull they were obviously relieved, as both of their cars were very fragile today.