Lewis Hamilton won the Italian Grand Prix from pole for
McLaren on Sunday while championship leader Fernando Alonso finished
third for hosts Ferrari amid plenty of drama from 10th on the grid.
Alonso
got ahead of title holder Sebastian Vettel after being shoved onto the
grass by him -- for which Vettel received a drive-through penalty -- and
then unsurprisingly moved ahead of team-mate Felipe Massa in the 40th
of 53 laps.
Hamilton won his third season race and
the third straight for McLaren in 1 hour 19 minutes 41.221 seconds,
ahead of Sauber’s Sergio Perez, up from 12th on the grid, and Alonso.
Vettel
had to retire with five laps left over what appeared to be an
alternator problem and Jenson Button also didn’t see the finish line for
McLaren.
Alonso garnered precious championship
points after a car problem denied him a better qualifying the previous
day, topping the standings with 179 points from Hamilton (142), Kimi
Raikkonen of Lotus (141) and Vettel (140).
Mark
Webber has 132 after also having to retire and Button appears out of
contention with 101 points a week after winning in Belgium.
Hamilton
won the start from pole while Massa got past Button and even tried to
attack Hamilton into the first chicane, but he failed to take the lead
ahead of the McLarens.
Alonso also wasted no time,
surging from 10th to seventh after the first lap, and fifth in the
seventh lap after getting ahead of former world champions Raikkonen and
Michael Schumacher as well.
Jean-Eric Vergne escaped a
scare when his Toro Rosso spun ahead of turn one with what could
appeared a car problem, flew across the kerbs and sleeping policemen
before landing heavily on the grass.
Vergne complained about “pain in my back” on team radio before the car was lifted away by a crane.
Most drivers then pitted between the 15th and 22nd lap, with Vettel getting out just ahead of Alonso.
The
championship leaders then provided major drama in the 26th lap when
Alonso tried to overtake on the outside but Vettel gave no way which
forced the Ferrari onto grass and Alonso to a furious “that’s enough”
via team radio.
Alonso finally moved ahead of the
German three laps later and race stewards then punished Vettel with a
drive through penalty for “forcing a driver off the track.” That ended
the podium ambitions for the 2008 and 2011 Monza winner as Vettel
returned in ninth place, and in the same 34th lap Button’s race was
ended by a mechanical problem.
Vettel’s agony was
complete when he had to stop in the 48th of 53 laps and Webber didn’t
see the finish line either, bringing the car back to the pits in the
52nd in a weekend to forget for Red Bull.
Perez,
meanwhile, made his one-stop strategy work best, pitting later than all
others in the 30th lap and using the fresher tyres to storm past Alonso
in the late stages into a second career runner-up finish.
He
may have even threatened Hamilton had the race latest a little longer,
but the Briton was never under serious threat a week after he and Alonso
were taken out in a first-lap crash in Belgium, he made headlines with
tweets on car details, and speculation about a move to Mercedes next
year.
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