ALONSO'S CLOSING IN
OK, it's the Italian Grand Prix, at Monza and there's one thing you can garuntee here. Red flags, Italian noise(no scratch that, tifosi noise - big difference) with a large side portion of history. The track is fast and it's Ferrari home territory. A 1-2 for the red cars looked to be a sure bet, the Brits, including Lewis were expected to have to settle for scraps, and that was without the spy mess coming back from the dead due to someone supposedly coming up with further evidence against McLaren. That was in the future though.
In qualifying DC was the unluckiest of the Brits. Gearbox trouble forced him off the track in Q1 and he had to start from P20. The Honda's for once though had actually come to a race with a half-decent package and not only did both of them make Q2 but Jenson made Q3 though Barrichello had to settle for P12. In Q3 well Lewis got the first provisional pole time but then had to duel with Massa for P1, only for Alonso, who'd dominated qualifying so far, to come through and grab pole for himself, his second of the season.
In the race itself, well DC did what he's been doing semi-regularly since his lower formulae days in the early 90s, make up a load of places on the grid, on this occassion five. It was good while it lasted, he had an insane looking crash just one lap in, seemingly losing it on the near-straight Curva Grande. The crash turned out to be down to a front wing problem, partly caused by a nudge from Fisichella. This stuff happens, better luck in Spa DC.
Jenson's race was his best for a while. Starting from the top ten certainly helps and he was up to P9 immediately and Massa crashing out got him into a points position. Cue a good duel with Rosberg, primarilly for 7th which the Brit did eventually lose but in the meantime he made it as high as 5th place before pitting, taking him temporarilly out of the points before making it back into the top eight and only the second point of his season so far. Too little too late for this season but maybe Honda are starting to learn some lessons. We'll see at Spa.
Lewis though? Well he had to fight off the Ferraris at the start but though Massa temporarilly tooks 2nd off him it wasn't for long. Holding off the Ferraris turned out to be the hot rookie's main task on the day with Raikonen the sole threat after Massa's crash. It looked as though Ferrari had outsmarted McLaren in terms of pitstop strategy, the one stopping Raikonen finding himself ahead of Lewis in the latter part of the race and of course, F1 is all about pitstop strategy nowadays right? Someone didn't tell Lewis, he started a move from 'way' back to take second place off the Finn in the dying stages.
Unfortunately, the one guy that Lewis never looked like catching was the one guy he mosted needed to beat. Alonso had decided coming into this weekend that he was going to stop whining and actually do some double world champions driving. He dominated qualifying, didn't quite lead from start to finish in the race but was certainly too good for Ferrari's strategy and so picked himself up his fourth win of the season, heading up McLaren's fourth 1-2 of the year, usurping Ferrari country!
So Lewis still leads the world champions with 92 points, but his lead has been cut to three points. Further down DC remains in 12th place with 8 points(but no top three finishes) while even further down, Jenson remains in 16th place, but his position is now more secure with 2 points.
So it's now back to Spa.
Comments go here
Click here to return to sports homepage
Click here to return to Matt G's homepage