If the fat lady is not singing at full volume just yet, she is already in costume, has finished her vocal exercises and is waiting impatiently at the side of the stage to be called on. Pure and simple mathematics may still suggest that Sebastian Vettel remains catchable given the number of points still available to fight over in 2011, but in reality the Italian Grand Prix was the final nail in the coffin for the championship fight, secured in place by a hammer blow of a drive from the dominant German.
It wasn't supposed to have been this straightforward for the mercurial reigning champion, at the track that had been heralded as Red Bull's bogey circuit, the track they couldn't crack. Statistics seemed to back this theory up, with the last race not to have featured a single Red Bull on the front row of the grid having been the corresponding Monza fixture last year. But Vettel took pole position and the win in exhilarating fashion, to not just finally crack Monza, but smash his rivals to pieces as well.
His rivals tried their best to make life difficult for him, with McLaren pushing him all the way for most of qualifying and Fernando Alonso briefly leading the German in the race, but as an exercise in delaying the inevitable it all amounted to little more than trying to bail out the sinking ship of the 2011 championship battle using two thimbles and an egg cup. Still, the good news was that if the results remain entirely predictable this year, the racing on track is still as close as you could like. Even Vettel can't take that comfort away.
Practice and Qualifying
The predicted McLaren dominance of the Monza weekend that a number of observers had confidently predicted before the teams arrived at the historic and Tifosi-filled venue never really emerged, though the Woking squad at least started their Monza stay strongly by finishing top of the pile in the opening practice session, as Lewis Hamilton topped the first 90 minutes of action by the best part of a second from team mate Jenson Button.
The level of early performance from the McLarens appeared impressive enough, with only the two Red Bull drivers getting within 2.5 seconds of Hamilton's sub-1:24 session-topper. Meanwhile, it was an altogether more dubious start for Ferrari, with both Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa ending up being outpaced by the rather sub-stellar likes of Adrian Sutil's Force India and Vitaly Petrov's Renault as they scraped home in 7th and 8th respectively by the end of the session.
For the rest of the weekend, though, McLaren's drivers never got a look in for top spot in a session. In fact, nobody apart from a certain German did. Vettel moved ahead in the Friday afternoon practice session, albeit by relative fractions from Hamilton, while Michael Schumacher showed some early signs that Mercedes might be more of a factor at a track that played to the W02's straight-line speed strengths (their weaknesses being everything else) with third place from Massa and Alonso.
The two Friday sessions were relatively free of incident, save for Sebastien Buemi conspiring to partially demolish his Toro Rosso in a highish-speed crash at the Parabolica, while the timesheets in both sessions displayed what was generally a two-by-two order with the midfield teams, highlighting the fact that there is often little option for the driver to make a significant difference at the flat-out track where top speed tends to rule.
Come Saturday morning, Red Bull extended their advantage, with Vettel and team mate Mark Webber wrapping up a 1-2 in the final practice session, ahead of the slightly surprising form of Massa, busy getting a nosebleed up in third place. The two McLarens faded slightly further down to 4th and 5th places for Hamilton and Button respectively, neither appearing entirely happy with their setups.
Come qualifying proper though, the situation changed again, and Vettel faced a real battle with the McLaren duo. Hamilton was fastest overall in the Q1 section of the session, and while Vettel then finished ahead on Q2, both of the Mercedes-powered cars got within two tenths of a second of his time. It appeared like this was all set to be the closest-run fight for pole position of the season so far.
Into the final part of the session, and Vettel maintained his slender advantage through the first timed runs, over Hamilton, Button and Alonso. But he was clearly having to work for his advantage, his exertions at the wheel eventually ruining the second timed lap of his first run when he had to catch a lurid slide in the middle of the Ascari chicane.
Undeterred, and without even stopping to change his underwear, Vettel gave it his all on a second set of the soft tyres for one final flyer at the end of the session, with his rivals all out on track at the same time as well. And as he always appears to do, the German pulled out a supreme lap at the end of the session, storming around the circuit to break the tape with a 1:22.275, precisely half a second clear of Hamilton.
The 2008 champion failed to improve on his final run with a scruffy final lap, while Button was likewise too ragged and remained in third place when he aborted his own final run, the two McLaren drivers left scratching their heads as to precisely how Vettel had just done what he had done.
Alonso salvaged 4th place for Ferrari to keep the spirits of the home fans at least slightly up, while Mark Webber was left a demoralised 5th, having battled against KERS issues all session-long, and then the Australian making an error in going for a single long run towards the end of the Q3 session, a mistake he admitted to after the session.
Still, he beat Massa, if there is any consolation in that these days, with the impressive Petrov and the steady Schumacher forming up the fourth row of the grid. The top ten was completed by Nico Rosberg, who opted to qualify on the harder Pirelli in an effort to set himself up in a better situation for Sunday, while Bruno Senna made Q3 for the second race in a row but didn't bother setting a time in the session.
And after re-watching Vettel's pole lap after the session, there may have been a few more drivers who might have thought that they shouldn't have bothered either.
The Race
The big test for Vettel and Red Bull's new-found Monza pace, though, would come on Sunday. Overnight, the talk was about the critical compromise the team had made on set-up for the weekend, using a shorter gear ratio for qualifying in order to maximise acceleration at the expense of top speed. The times from qualifying showed that the pole man was up to 15kph down on his rivals, and the general consensus was that if he lost the lead at the start, he was going to have a heck of a job getting it back.
Almost in keeping with the metaphorical script, Vettel did indeed lose the lead at the start. His getaway wasn't bad, but as he tore down to the first corner side-by-side with Hamilton, the attack came from behind, with Alonso acing his own start from fourth to make it three-abreast as the field funnelled down into the Rettifilo. He just scraped alongside while momentarily hooking a wheel on the grass and made the pass for the lead into the chicane, to send the Scuderia-mad crowd into rapture.
The front few cars got through the notoriously tight and tricky first chicane without any particular issues, but the heart was torn out of the midfield by the sudden missile-like entrance of the out-of-control HRT of Vitantonio Liuzzi. The Italian found himself jostled off the track at the back of the field as they approached the corner, he lost control of the car and slid sideways across the grass, before creaming into the middle of the pack at barely abated speed.
The casualties were numerous. Rosberg's medium tyre gamble would never be realised, with the Mercedes driver out on the spot, while Vitaly Petrov's 7th place grid slot was also ruined with retirement in the crash. Added to that pair, and Liuzzi's inevitable DNF, Rubens Barrichello's Williams was badly damaged along with Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi. With Daniel Ricciardo stalling his HRT on the grid and then having to pit with car dramas and Jerome d'Ambrosio retiring with immediate gearbox issues, the carnage throughout the second half of the field on the opening tour was significant.
The safety car was called for given the pile of expensive wrecks at the first chicane, with Alonso leading the field around from Vettel, Hamilton and the quick-starting Schumacher. Massa ran fifth, from a slow-starting Button and Webber. Force India's Paul di Resta, the Williams of Pastor Maldonado and the Sauber of Sergio Perez completed the early top ten, all managing to tip-toe through the Liuzzi-inspired mess to jump up the order, as well as Jaime Alguersuari, who was up from his lowly 18th placed grid slot in 11th behind the safety car.
The silver Mercedes coupe peeled in at the end of the third lap, and racing resumed, with the next phase of the race providing some of the most hectic action the usually-drab Monza has seen for many a year. Schumacher immediately jumped up to third place after catching Hamilton napping as the racing restarted. Vettel, apparently unperturbed by both his apparent gearing disadvantage and his need to maintain his huge points lead, attempted a bold move around the outside of the second chicane for the lead, only to be strong-armed out of it by Alonso.
It wasn't long before Vettel was through, and it was an equally bold move that secured the lead for the Red Bull man. Emboldened by his car's quicker acceleration, the German moved to the outside of Alonso through the flat-out Curva Grande, with the Spaniard manoeuvring the RB7 wide enough in defence to force Vettel to kick up a plume of dirt as his left wheels temporarily left the safety of the track surface. But that didn't stop him keeping his foot planted to the throttle, and the pair tore down to the Roggia side-by-side, with Vettel completing the spectacular move into the apex of the corner. Just five laps after he lost the lead, he had regained it with a move as good as F1's more well-renowned overtakers had managed all year.
But while things were looking up for one Red Bull, Webber's day was over shortly after. Already limping around with a damaged front wing after he ended up nuzzling Massa's Ferrari into a spin at the first chicane earlier on the lap, the Australian driver shot straight off the track and into the barriers at the Parabolica, after the damaged wing detached and got stuck under the car, leaving Webber a passenger as he slightly pathetically slid to the scene of what remarkably became the first Red Bull DNF of 2011.
Webber's race was over, but for everyone else it was very much on. Schumacher had an optimistic look at Alonso on lap 6, compromising his exit to the second chicane and allowing Hamilton a run on the Mercedes. Some robust defence from the German kept the McLaren at bay, and it wouldn't be the first time that he would need to use that tactic in his armoury during the afternoon. Meanwhile, Webber and Massa's collision had allowed Maldonado to move up to 6th from Perez and di Resta, though Massa was only slightly delayed in recovering from his RBR-induced spin, and he quickly tore past that trio.
By lap 10, Vettel was cruising away from the squabbling pack behind, some six seconds up the road from Alonso, who had recovered from Schumacher's earlier attack to extend a 2.2 second lead over the Mercedes man. The focus of the action was now on the fight for third, with Hamilton continuing what on paper appeared to be the straightforward task of passing a Mercedes using a McLaren. But the combination of the W02's straight-line speed, his own dubious gearing which was forcing him to hit the rev limiter every time he tried to use his DRS wing to pass and some canny defending from the hugely experienced German was keeping Hamilton bottled up, and allowing Button to catch the pair of them from fifth.
The defensive moves of Schumacher quickly attracted the attention of both the McLaren and Mercedes pit walls, and the watching race stewards. On more than one occasion, the German appeared to technically defend his position twice on the run to a corner, something that in the modern-day 'after you, sir' approach to F1 on-track battles is not strictly on. On two occasions as the race went on, Ross Brawn came on the pit radio, apparently fearful of the threat of a penalty, to casually inform Schumacher he might want to just check his driving, but in the nebulous F1 rulebook Schumacher got away with it by virtue of his 'second move' always being able to be defined as a gentle sweep back to the racing line for the corner.
That was certainly Schumacher's take on it. "I did exactly what I was supposed to do," he smiled politely after the race, "There was no request to see the stewards so I guess all is in order." Hamilton looked less impressed with the situation after the race, and at one point barked to his team over his own radio that "I thought you were only allowed one move", but asked if he thought whether there was anything wrong with Schumacher's driving, he simply shrugged: "That's racing."
Hamilton did manage to force his way past into the Rettifilo on lap 13, but he was then compromised down on the run to the Roggia, and Schumacher nicked back ahead of the frustrated McLaren driver. By now, Button was right on the tail of the pair of them, and the scrap became a genuine three-way fight for the final podium spot, with Vettel and Alonso still pulling away in the front. Hamilton had another go at Curva Grande on lap 16, only for Schumacher to robustly close the door and force Hamilton to take to the grass and back out of the move, and that delay allowed Button past his team mate, then swinging past Schumacher with ease at Ascari as the Mercedes jumped off the edge of the cliff with its first set of Pirelli tyres.
Schumacher then pitted at the end of the 16th tour for his first stop, with the tyres generally holding up well in Italy and allowing a race of largely standard two-stop strategies, releasing Hamilton temporarily. But with Schumacher then having the advantage of the quicker rubber, by the time the first pit stop window shook itself out Hamilton remained impotently stuck behind the Mercedes. By lap 23, Vettel led by some 12.1 seconds from Alonso, with Button now tasking himself with closing down the Ferrari driver. Schumacher and Hamilton continued to squabble for fourth some five seconds down the road, with Massa sixth from Perez, di Resta, Alguersuari and Maldonado, who was falling back all the time and was passed by Buemi for the final points place on lap 24.
Despite the two titanic scraps continuing between Alonso/Button and Schumacher/Hamilton, there was a sense that the race was slowly returning to type as something of a processional Monza race. But not before Hamilton finally got the best of his race-long nemesis on lap 27, shortly after Brawn had given his defensive driver his second warning over the radio. The pass was as standard as they came, through the second DRS zone and into the Ascari chicane, but the damage to his race was done, and the 2008 champion now looked to simply be driving to maintain this new fourth place.
Ahead, his team mate was now all over the back of Alonso, and in an effort to pit stop his way ahead he kicked off the perfunctory second round of stops on lap 34, with Alonso in next time by as the drivers began to adopt the medium tyres. Although the Spaniard emerged back ahead on the track, Button spied a chance as his rival contended with his cold tyres, and he eased past the Ferrari through Curva Grande on lap 36. Although Alonso tried to re-pass into the Roggia, Button sent him round the long way and comfortably kept hold of the position.
Vettel completed his own final stop comfortably, and by lap 42 he now led by 15.9 seconds from Button, with Alonso dropping back from the McLaren as the Ferrari again struggled once it was switched to the harder of the available Pirelli compounds. Hamilton was now slowly catching Alonso on his own harder tyres, though there remained seven seconds between the two of them. Schumacher ran fifth from Massa, with Alguersuari now seventh having passed di Resta back on lap 32. Buemi and Senna completed the points scorers as things stood, after Perez was forced to retire with gearbox issues.
From there to the flag, Vettel remained imperious. Button was able to match the Red Bull driver's pace in the closing stages, but never looked like making up the gap between them. It was the eighth win of Vettel's season, and after negotiating Alonso's Ferrari early on, it proved to be one of his easiest. The gap descended to under ten seconds by the flag, but that was thanks to little more than the German taking it easy as the final few laps ticked by.
Button was left with second place, his third podium in a row, and could count himself happy with that recovery after dropping down to sixth on the first lap. Meanwhile, the crowd saved their biggest cheers for the man who crossed the line in third, as Alonso doggedly hung on to another podium despite Hamilton closing to within less than a second by the flag. "I think one or two more laps and probably we'd lose the podium," the Spaniard admitted after the race, but he was now secure in second place in the championship.
Hamilton was left with fourth, ahead of the feisty form of Schumacher, while Massa came home in sixth after a typically anonymous second half of the race. Alguersuari came through for 7th from 18th on the grid, benefiting from being elevated up through the first lap carnage and then passing his way to his best-ever F1 finish, while di Resta took eighth. Senna scored his first-ever F1 points with 9th, having passed an ailing Sebastien Buemi in the final laps. The Swiss driver was left to take the final point in 10th.
Having run as high as sixth, Pastor Maldonado eventually slid back to 11th, unable to hold off his midfield rivals, while Barrichello recovered to 12th despite the damage he sustained on the first lap. The only other classified finishers were the Team Lotus duo of Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock's Virgin. HRT's Ricciardo was still lapping at the end, but lost so many laps as the team fixed his startline car issues that he was not classified.
The retirement list was bigger than usual, thanks to Random HRT Out Of Nowhere Syndrome. Joining first lap retirements Rosberg, Petrov and Liuzzi were the luckless d'Ambrosio, the hapless Webber and the gearless Perez. Also retiring during the race were the other Sauber of Kamui Kobayashi and Adrian Sutil's Force India, both of whom stopped with car problems.
With six races to go in the 2011 season then, Vettel's title is now virtually secured, thanks to a win in a race that even before qualifying you'd have got half-decent odds on him not winning. The gearing issues from before the race never really came into play, and his points lead now stands at a barely-quantifiable 112 points, with just 150 left to play for. That noise you can hear is the fat lady impatiently tapping her foot.
Driver of the Race
Fernando Alonso - Special mentions must of course go to the roadblocking Michael Schumacher, the recovering Jenson Button and the inevitable Sebastian Vettel, but for Alonso it was a case of another race, another podium that his increasingly-hapless Ferrari machinery probably didn't deserve. While even the Spaniard himself admitted after the race that he was another couple of laps away from losing the podium altogether to the recovering Lewis Hamilton as the 150° Italia once again faltered on the harder Pirellis, his heroics earlier in the race ensured that the McLaren man had too much of a gap to make up in the available 53 laps.
When all is said and done in 2011, Vettel really should be everyone's driver of the season, but Alonso keeps making a case for his own inclusion in that award, and if he can somehow hang on to his current second spot in the championship over the final six rounds, he'd arguably have done enough to convince even the most strident of Alonso haters.
Moment of the Race
Lap 5 - Vettel's pass for the lead perhaps wasn't the most epic on paper, with the German using his better acceleration to get a run on Alonso through Curva Grande, and completing the move under brakes into the Roggia. But the pass was made all the more thrilling by the fact that he was forced around the outside at the flat-out right-hander, to the point that he hooked a wheel or two onto the grass, and still kept his foot in to complete the move. All from a man not previously renowned for being a feisty overtaker, and from someone who had no real need to crave the race lead given his epic points lead. Like George Mallory spying the peak of a mountain, the desire to get into the lead of the race for Vettel amounts to little more than "because it's there".
Quote of the Race
"It would be wrong for you to plan what you would do with a million dollars if you won the lottery tomorrow. First you have to win, then you worry about what you do with your winnings." - Vettel tries, and probably fails, to convince everyone that he is not yet thinking of himself as the 2011 world champion.
Patronise F1's Italian GP Coverage
Race Preview - Italian Grand Prix
Minute-by-minute reports:
Free Practice 1
Free Practice 2
Free Practice 3
Italian GP Qualifying
Italian GP Race
Session reports:
FP1 - Hamilton top as McLaren dominate FP1
FP2 - Vettel gets ahead in tight second practice
FP3 - Vet stays ahead in final Monza practice
Qualifying - Vettel takes massive pole in Italy
Race - Vettel roams to Monza GP victory
Post-race coverage:
Five talking points from the Italian GP
Fifth Column - Italy
The Results
| 2011 Italian Grand Prix | ||||
| Race Result after 53 Laps | ||||
| Pos | Driver | Car | Time | Grid |
| 1 | Sebastian Vettel (Ger) | Red Bull RB7 Renault | 1hr20:46.172 | 1 |
| 2 | Jenson Button (Gbr) | McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes | +9.590 | 3 |
| 3 | Fernando Alonso (Spa) | Ferrari 150˚ Italia | +16.909 | 4 |
| 4 | Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) | McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes | +17.417 | 2 |
| 5 | Michael Schumacher (Ger) | Mercedes W02 | +32.677 | 8 |
| 6 | Felipe Massa (Bra) | Ferrari 150˚ Italia | +42.993 | 6 |
| 7 | Jaime Alguersuari (Spa) | Toro Rosso STR6 Ferrari | +1 Lap | 18 |
| 8 | Paul di Resta (Gbr) | Force India VJM04 Mercedes | +1 Lap | 11 |
| 9 | Bruno Senna (Bra) | Lotus Renault R31 | +1 Lap | 10 |
| 10 | Sebastien Buemi (Swi) | Toro Rosso STR6 Ferrari | +1 Lap | 16 |
| 11 | Pastor Maldonado (Ven) | Williams FW33 Cosworth | +1 Lap | 14 |
| 12 | Rubens Barrichello (Bra) | Williams FW33 Cosworth | +1 Lap | 13 |
| 13 | Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) | Lotus T128 Renault | +2 Laps | 20 |
| 14 | Jarno Trulli (Ita) | Lotus T128 Renault | +2 Laps | 19 |
| 15 | Timo Glock (Ger) | Virgin MVR-02 Cosworth | +2 Laps | 21 |
| Not Classified | ||||
| Daniel Ricciardo (Aus) | HRT F111 Cosworth | +14 Laps | 23 | |
| Sergio Perez (Mex) | Sauber C30 Ferrari | 32 Laps - Gearbox | 15 | |
| Kamui Kobayashi (Jap) | Sauber C30 Ferrari | 21 Laps - Gearbox | 17 | |
| Adrian Sutil (Ger) | Force India VJM04 Mercedes | 9 Laps - Hydraulics | 12 | |
| Mark Webber (Aus) | Red Bull RB7 Renault | 4 Laps - Accident | 5 | |
| Jerome d'Ambrosio (Bel) | Virgin MVR-02 Cosworth | 1 Lap - Gearbox | 22 | |
| Vitaly Petrov (Rus) | Lotus Renault R31 | 0 Laps - Accident | 7 | |
| Nico Rosberg (Ger) | Mercedes W02 | 0 Laps - Accident | 9 | |
| Vitantonio Liuzzi (Ita) | HRT F111 Cosworth | 0 Laps - Accident | 24 | |
| Fastest Lap | ||||
| Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) | McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes | 1:26.187 |
| Drivers Standings | Constructors Standings | |||||
| Pos | Driver | Pts | Pos | Constructor | Pts | |
| 1 | Vettel | 284 | 1 | Red Bull Renault | 451 | |
| 2 | Alonso | 172 | 2 | McLaren Mercedes | 325 | |
| 3 | Button | 167 | 3 | Ferrari | 254 | |
| 4 | Webber | 167 | 4 | Mercedes | 108 | |
| 5 | Hamilton | 158 | 5 | Renault | 70 | |
| 6 | Massa | 82 | 6 | Force India Mercedes | 36 | |
| 7 | Rosberg | 56 | 7 | Sauber Ferrari | 35 | |
| 8 | Schumacher | 52 | 8 | Toro Rosso Ferrari | 29 | |
| 9 | Petrov | 34 | 9 | Williams Cosworth | 5 | |
| 10 | Nick Heidfeld | 34 | ||||
| 11 | Kobayashi | 27 | ||||
| 12 | Sutil | 24 | ||||
| 13 | Alguersuari | 16 | ||||
| 14 | Buemi | 13 | ||||
| 15 | Di Resta | 12 | ||||
| 16 | Perez | 8 | ||||
| 17 | Barrichello | 4 | ||||
| 18 | Senna | 2 | ||||
| 19 | Maldonado | 1 |
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