Conclusions from the Italian Grand Prix
Lewis Hamilton took a pole-to-flag victory for McLaren at Monza as he completed a happy ending to a bittersweet week.
Much of the talk in the build up to the race focussed on the British drivers future after a tweeting out a picture of a number of McLaren’s technical specification ahead of last weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix.
Contract talks between the driver and his team were put to one side as he lined up in first ahead of team mate Jenson Button on the grid. Despite all the talk about his psychological state-of-mind Hamilton never seriously looked under threat as he shrugged off the challenge of Sergio Perez and Fernando Alonso who completed the podium.
As usual at Monza there were plenty of thrills and spills with nineteen of the twenty-four cars finishing the race.
Much of the talk in the build up to the race focussed on the British drivers future after a tweeting out a picture of a number of McLaren’s technical specification ahead of last weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix.
Contract talks between the driver and his team were put to one side as he lined up in first ahead of team mate Jenson Button on the grid. Despite all the talk about his psychological state-of-mind Hamilton never seriously looked under threat as he shrugged off the challenge of Sergio Perez and Fernando Alonso who completed the podium.
As usual at Monza there were plenty of thrills and spills with nineteen of the twenty-four cars finishing the race.
Here’s what we learned from the Italian Grand Prix...
- Lewis Hamilton scored the 20th victory of his career at Monza, in what was his first victory around the famous Italian circuit. The British driver’s career total now equals that of former McLaren great Mika Hakkinen.
- This was a good weekend, not only for the race winner, but also for his team. It was a third consecutive win for McLaren, and ended a run of four years without being able to string back-to-back-to-back victories together.
- On Saturday Hamilton also recorded his 23rd career pole position in Italy which moves him back in front of Fernando Alonso, and means he needs only one more to break into the all-time top ten.
- With Jenson Button starting second on the grid, this was a 62nd one-two for McLaren in team history. This moved them ahead of Williams, and only eight behind all-time leaders Ferrari who possess 70 front row lockouts. For all their success, the Italian team haven’t claimed a front row double since the 2008 French Grand Prix.
- The retirements of Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel were the first time Red Bull has failed to score a point since the 2010 Korean Grand Prix. This ended a 33-race streak.
- Alonso’s 80th podium finish puts him on par with Ayrton Senna in terms of the number of top three finishes secured throughout his career. Alonso has taken 189 races to reach 80 podiums whereas Senna made 161 career starts.
- The Spanish driver is still third behind Michael Schumacher (155) and Alain Prost (106).
- There must be something about the home of Ferrari for Fernando Alonso, as he has finished in the top three on every occasion driving for the Italian team at their home grand prix.
- After Alonso re-started his consecutive points streak following last week’s crash at Spa, Kimi Raikonen is now the leading driver in terms of successive points scores. He has racked up ten in a row since the Bahrain Grand Prix earlier this year.
- Felipe Massa managed to qualify ahead of Fernando Alonso for the first time since last year’s Korean Grand Prix.
- Narain Karthikeyan out qualified his team mate, Pedro de la Rosa for the first time this year, and in doing so he ended a streak in which he hadn’t out qualified any team mate since the 2005 Grand Prix of China.
- Sebastian Vettel had a disastrous race thanks to a mechanical problem, and in doing so the world champion suffered the embarrassment of being classified in last place for the first time since the 2008 Turkish Grand Prix.
- The double world champion didn’t have much luck out on the track, but he celebrated in unique style by wearing his 50th different helmet design in just 94 races in the sport.
- Despite being considered one of the staples of Formula One racing, Monza experienced its first race since 1969 in which no ‘home’ driver was on the grid competing.
- Although there were no Italian natives starting at Monza, Ma Qing Hua became the first ever Chinese driver to participate in an official F1 weekend with HRT when he took part in free practice.
- All three drivers who were eliminated from last week’s Belgian Grand Prix finished on the podium this week. Ironically the order in which Romain Grosjean crashed into each driver last weekend was the order they finished.