The 24-year-old Sebastian Vettel took victory at the Italian Grand Prix as McLaren's Jenson Button came through to take second ahead of Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.
The young German Red Bull driver is now without doubt the future winner of the 2011 FIA World Championship after having the edge on the rest of the field in both qualifying and race pace throughout the 2011 season.
Alonso had the best start and quickly went from sixth to first by the first corner. He was visibly slowing the Red Bull of Vettel for the first few laps of the race and it seemed like a matter of time until the German would have his own way, which was the case on lap 4.
Tonio Liuzzi caused a massive crash at the first corner on the first lap and has been given a five-place grid penalty in Singapore. The Italian who is driving the HRT spun on the approach to the corner slamming into Vitaly Petrov and Nico Rosberg. Rubens Barrichello, Kamui Kobayashi, Adrian Sutil, Sebastien Buemi and Bruno Senna were also delayed in the mayhem.
Hamilton lost second after the restart and fell to third, when the race was re-started. Schumacher over took Hamilton who had been blocked in the queue by the two cars ahead. From that point on the McLaren driver was stuck behind Schumacher for 24 laps. Team-mate Jenson Button made matters worse for Hamilton on lap 16 as he over took both Hamilton and Schumacher in one move.
Schumacher seemed to break an FIA rule by moving twice and blocking Hamilton at over 200MPH. Mercedes team boss Ross Brawn came on the radio to tell Schumacher he needed to give Hamilton more space during their dice.
Hamilton said after the race: “I got some points and I finished so I can’t really complain. I’m looking forward to the next couple of races when we go away oversees. It’s going to be exciting.”
Schumacher insisted that his driving was within the regulations: “I felt I did exactly what I was supposed to do. As far as I understand, there was no request for me to see the stewards, so I guess all was in order."
Bruno Senna the 27-year-old Brazilian driver scored his first world championship points at Monza. Bruno is the nephew of the great late Ayrton Senna who also raced for Lotus.
Bruno Senna said after the race: “I’m happy to score my first F1 points today, especially as it was only my second race for the team. Although I started 10th, it was not easy to finish ninth. We suffered some bad luck in the first corner. It makes me very happy to know that I am able to put myself in the position of scoring points, and also to fight with the guys who have been doing this for a long time. The team chose a great strategy, the tyre was fast enough where I needed it to be and I am very happy to get my name on the points board. The team did a great job and I am really looking forward to Singapore.”
Stefano Domenicali the Ferrari team principal said that Fernando Alonso accomplished a lot and gave the Maranello squad a big boost. “It was clear that Red Bull were incredibly strong [at Monza], and also McLaren were really strong. So to see that now Fernando is second in the drivers' championship classification means a lot.”
