Lewis Leads Ferrari in Monza

Lewis Hamilton will start the Italian GP on pole position ahead of Ferrari pair Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel at Monza.

The world champion and current title leader had been fastest in all three practice sessions and maintained his 100 per cent record with a 1:23.397s lap around the 3.6-mile Monza track.

It was Hamilton's seventh pole in a row and 11th of the season. Not exactly a surprise, then, although the presence of the Ferraris in second and third places on the grid very much was - as is the presence of Raikkonen in P2 ahead of Vettel.

In the event, the Finn just pipped his team-mate with a lap 0.234s slower than Hamilton's, with Vettel in turn outpacing Nico Rosberg.

That Raikkonen and Vettel were able to mix it with the Mercs certainly added a bit of flavour to proceedings and kept the Tifosi on their toes, particularly when one considers how fast the Silver Arrows had been on Friday.

"These guys did a great job and they are very close," Hamilton said afterwards, flanked by Raikkonen and Vettel. Yet he also said he hopes Rosberg - over whom he currently holds a 28-point lead - finishes ahead of the Ferraris.

"Going into every race you want to get as many points as you can and always hoping that there is an opportunity to gain more than the usual," Hamilton added. "But, honestly, I'm hoping that Nico pulls through and we can do a good job and naturally we both want to finish ahead of the Ferraris here.

"That's always good to do on their home turf, if possible, and also for the championship."

Ferrari's 2-3 even managed to raise Raikkonen's eyebrows. "If we look now, we have probably surprised ourselves a little bit," he said. "We expected a strong weekend but this track is probably not our strongest. But it's nice to be here and it's our best qualifying this season as a team."

But at least Rosberg had an excuse. Eventually qualifying 0.306s slower than Hamilton, the German's car needed an engine change ahead of the session - reverting back, therefore, to an older power unit than the one they've introduced this weekend.

Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas were next up as Williams, as usual, gradually upped their pace - although Ferrari's ability to rise to the occasion in general relegated the Mercedes customer teams.

Sergio Perez qualified seventh for Force India, ahead of Romain Grosjean's Lotus and although Nico Hulkenberg was eventually ninth in his Force India, the German ran out of fuel during Q3 and was unable to improve his time.

Marcus Ericsson rounded out the top 10, meanwhile, but the Sauber driver could yet feel the wrath of the stewards after allegedly blocking Hulkenberg. 

There are already penalties aplenty further back in the order, as the usual suspects make engine changes. The Red Bulls of Daniil Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo were 14th and 15th, with the Australian getting a lap in during Q1 after his team managed to change his car's Renault power unit in an hour and 40 minutes.

Ricciardo reckoned it was a record; if so, it comes as little surprise given how much practice Red Bull's mechanics have had so far this season. 

Just by getting the lap in, Ricciardo was able to consign Jenson Button to an early exit, with the McLaren driver 16th fastest ahead of team-mate Fernando Alonso.

All four drivers will start the race from the back of the grid, together with the Toro Rossos of Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen, who have also taken engine penalties this weekend.

Even so, Verstappen's new power unit also developed problems, which left him stranded in the pits for most of P1. His team rushed to get him out, which they succeeded in doing; but they didn't secure his car's engine cover sufficiently and it flew off as the Dutch teenager took the Lesmo bends. 

Italian GP Qualifying timesheet:

1. L Hamilton, Mercedes, 1:23.397

2. K Raikkonen, Ferrari, 1:23.631

3. S Vettel, Ferrari, 1:23.685

4. N Rosberg, Mercedes, 1:23.703

5. F Massa, Williams, 1:23.940

6. V Bottas, Williams, 1:24.127

7. S Perez, Force India, 1:24.626

8. R Grosjean, Lotus, 1:25.054

9. N Hulkenberg, Force India, 1:25.317

10. M Ericsson, Sauber, 1:26.214

11. P Maldonado, Lotus, 1:24.525

12. F Nasr, Sauber, 1:24.898

13. C Sainz, Toro Rosso, 1:25.618

14. D Kvyat, Red Bull, 1:25.796

15. D Ricciardo, Red Bull, No time

16. J Button, McLaren, 1:26.058

17. F Alonso, McLaren, 1:26.154

18. W Stevens, Manor, 1:27.731

19. R Merhi, Manor, 1:27.912

20. M Verstappen, Toro Rosso, No time

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Aussie Grit Claims Pole

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Mark Webber claimed his first pole position of the season - and his first since Korea last year - with a superb performance in qualifying in Japan on Saturday afternoon. The Australian got the better of Red Bull team mate Sebastian Vettel, who suffered from intermittent KERS issues in Q3.

Webber had set the pace in Q1 at Suzuka with 1m 32.271s as he took the honours away from Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, who in turn had displaced Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso. But with only a few minutes remaining the session was temporarily red-flagged when Jean-Eric Vergne’s Toro Rosso rolled to a smoky halt at the Degner Curve with its rear brakes on fire. 

After the STR8 had been liberally doused in fire extinguishant the session resumed briefly, giving those who wanted another run just enough time to complete one more timed lap. There was another fire, this time when Esteban Gutierrez got back to his pit and the rear end of his Sauber was briefly set ablaze.

Several runners, notably Lotus’s Romain Grosjean and Ferrari’s Felipe Massa, opted for the medium compound Pirellis and as they jumped to the top of the times with 1m 31.824s and 1m 31.994s respectively, Adrian Sutil paid the price for his FP3 crash and was the first man who failed to get through, with 1m 32.890s. 

Vergne was a sitting duck and dropped to 18th, while Max Chilton did a great job to outqualify the Caterhams. The Englishman lapped his Marussia in 1m 34.320s to Charles Pic’s 1m 34.556s and Giedo van der Garde’s 1m 34.879s. Jules Bianchi did a great job to bang in a lap of 1m 34.958s in his rebuilt Marussia, making the fight between the rival teams closer than it’s been all season.

In Q2 Vettel shaded Webber as he topped the times with 1m 31.290s, while further back McLaren’s Sergio Perez was pipped to a Q3 place as Massa staged a late improvement to sixth place. That left the Mexican on 1m 31.989s just ahead of Paul di Resta on 1m 31.992s for Force India. Valtteri Bottas and Pastor Maldonado were 13th and 15th for Williams with 1m 32.013s and 1m 32.093s respectively, sandwiching Gutierrez on 1m 32.063s. Daniel Ricciardo was 16th on 1m 32.485s in the remaining Toro Rosso.

Webber actually set two times that were quick enough for pole position in Q3; his first lap of 1m 30.975s quicker than Vettel’s two efforts of 1m 31.312s and 1m 31.089s, and his second an improved 1m 30.915s. 

As the Red Bulls wrapped up the front row, Hamilton improved from 10th place to third with his last-gasp lap of 1m 31.253s, moving Grosjean across to the outside of the second row on 1m 31.365s.

Massa once again outgunned Ferrari team mate Alonso, as the Brazilian set the fifth-best time of 1m 31.378s and the Spaniard could only manage 1m 31.665s for eighth. In between them came Nico Rosberg in the other Mercedes on 1m 31.397s and Sauber’s impressive Nico Hulkenberg on 1m 31.644s.

On the fifth row, Kimi Raikkonen recorded 1m 31.684s in the second Lotus to edge ahead of Jenson Button’s 1m 31.827s in the lead McLaren.

Sutil, Pic and Bianchi all have grid penalties; Sutil five places for changing his gearbox after his FP3 crash, and the two Frenchman 10-place penalties apiece for picking up their third reprimands of the season in Korea. That means that the last six drivers on the grid will line up in this order: Vergne, Chilton, Van der Garde, Sutil, Pic and Bianchi.

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Vettel Wins Monza Grand Prix

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Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel survived a number of minor issues to take his sixth win of the season in the Formula 1 Gran Premio d'Italia 2013 at Monza on Sunday afternoon. 

The world champion took the lead at the start as Ferrari’s Felipe Massa sprinted briefly up to second ahead of the second Red Bull of Mark Webber and the second Ferrari of Fernando Alonso. 

As Vettel extended his lead out front, despite some concerns about a flat-spotted tyre, Alonso fought past Webber with a bold move on the third lap, then caught and passed his team mate on the eighth. But there was nothing he could do about the German in the lead and though he finished only 5.4s adrift, the real gap was closer to double that as Vettel eased off considerably.

In the second half of the race Webber fought back and put Alonso under pressure until he was told to start short-shifting, but he was still less than a second behind the Ferrari at the end. Massa was a distant fourth.

Nico Hulkenberg and Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg had a race-long fight for fifth which went the Sauber driver’s way by six-tenths of a second even though Rosberg was the fastest man on track with three laps to go. Daniel Ricciardo made strong use of his superfast-in-a-straight line Toro Rosso to keep Romain Grosjean at bay, but Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton was closing on both and actually passed the Lotus going into the second chicane on the final lap. 

Unfortunately for the Briton, he’d gone over the run-off area to do it and had to hand back the place. Hamilton had his race strategy upset by a slow puncture in his Mercedes’ right front tyre on the 12th lap, and thus had to make two pit stops to almost everybody else’s one.

Kimi Raikkonen was the other man who had to stop twice after sustaining accident damage running his Lotus into Sergio Perez’s McLaren at the first corner after locking up. Like Hamilton, the Finn drove a feisty race to recover, but couldn’t hold Hamilton back on the 49th lap. He did catch and pass Perez, but missed out on the final point when he couldn’t quite get the job done on Jenson Button. The Englishman thus took a solitary point in McLaren’s 50th birthday race.

Behind Perez in 12th, fellow Mexican Esteban Gutierrez brought his Sauber home ahead of the Williams duo of Pastor Maldonado and Valtteri Bottas, while further back Charles Pic beat Caterham team mate Giedo van der Garde, as Jules Bianchi led home Marussia team mate Max Chilton at the rear of the field.

It was a bad race for Force India, with Paul di Resta a first-lap casualty after running into the back of Grosjean at the second chicane - an incident the stewards are investigating - and Adrian Sutil retiring on the penultimate lap when running behind the Hamilton/Raikkonen battle. Jean-Eric Vergne had kept Button and Hamilton at bay in the early stages until a transmission problem on his Toro Rosso put him out on the 15th lap.

Vettel’s sixth win of the season extended his championship lead over Alonso. The German now has 222 points to the Spaniard’s 169, while Hamilton is stuck back on 141 from Raikkonen on 134, as Webber moves up to 130.

In the constructors’ stakes, Red Bull had the biggest day and now have 352 points, while Ferrari’s strong performance puts them back into second place on 248 ahead of Mercedes on 245. Lotus remain fourth on 191 with McLaren fifth on 66 and Force India sixth on 61.

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Vettels Eases Win at Spa

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Sebastian Vettel took the lead from Lewis Hamilton on the opening lap of the 2013 Formula 1 Shell Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps on Sunday, and the manner in which his Red Bull imperiously swept ahead of the Mercedes on the climb up towards Les Combes set the tone for a dominant race in which the reigning world champion was never troubled.

As Vettel checked out, Hamilton was unable to hold off the fast-starting Fernando Alonso who bullied his Ferrari through the field from ninth on the grid to second place, but the Spaniard was 16.8s adrift of Vettel’s RB9 after the 44 laps. 

Hamilton held on for third, another 10.8s further back and 2.1s ahead of Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg, who made a welcome return to the points. At one stage the German was under threat from Red Bull’s Mark Webber, who made another poor start and spent the afternoon fighting back, but towards the end the Australian began to lose pace and was 3.9s behind Rosberg at the flag.

Jenson Button had a more competitive run for McLaren and led very briefly during the pit stops on the 15th lap, but Vettel was back in front before the lap was over. Thereafter Button lost ground to the really quick runners, but held on to a decent sixth. Ferrari’s Felipe Massa finally overcame Lotus’s Romain Grosjean on the 40th lap to claim seventh, as a feisty run from Adrian Sutil earned Force India two more points. Toro Rosso’s Daniel Ricciardo was also quick towards the end, passing Nico Hulkenberg’s Sauber and team mate Jean-Eric Vergne to claim the final point.

The other McLaren of Sergio Perez was 11th after serving a drive-through penalty for squeezing Grosjean into a momentary off at Les Combes while relieving him of 10th place on the eighth lap. Vergne, who finished behind him, did not get a similar penalty despite appearing to do the same to Nico Hulkenberg as they battled later at Les Combes. Behind, the Sauber driver's team mate Esteban Gutierrez’s path to 14th saw him get a drive-through penalty for gaining an advantage by leaving the track limits.

Valtteri Bottas was Williams higher placed runner in 15th after Pastor Maldonado was clipped by Sutil exiting the Bus Stop chicane on the 27th lap, then turned into Paul di Resta’s Force India after he appeared to belatedly try to get into the pit lane after he had passed the entrance. The Venezuelan received a 10-second stop-go penalty, which was no consolation to the angry Scot.

Giedo van der Garde drove his heart out for Caterham in the closing laps to keep Maldonado at bay for 16th, with the Marussias of Jules Bianchi and Max Chilton taking 18th and 19th.

Besides Di Resta and Charles Pic, whose Caterham faded early, the only other retirement was Kimi Raikkonen. The Finn’s amazing run of 27 consecutive points finishes ended with an apparent brake problem after his Lotus was seen emitting black dust from its wheels throughout the race. That lost him two places in the title fight, as Vettel extended his tally to 197 points from Alonso, who jumps to second with 151, and Hamilton, who takes third with 139 to Raikkonen’s 134. Webber is fifth with 115.

In the constructors’ stakes, Red Bull have 312 points to Mercedes’ 235, Ferrari’s 218, and Lotus’s 187, while McLaren move back ahead of Force India with 65 to 61.

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Hamilton Completes Hungary Miracle

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Lewis Hamilton had said it would be a miracle if Mercedes were to win the Hungarian Grand Prix, given he was expecting to struggle with tyre wear in the anticipated 50 degrees C track temperatures. Instead, in a gripping race in which the tension ran high throughout, he duly delivered that miracle as he joined the likes of Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss as a Grand Prix winner for the three-pointed star.

The race began with Hamilton maintaining his advantage from pole position as Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel was slow away and had to fight very hard to push Romain Grosjean wide and prevent the Lotus from taking second. Fernando Alonso jumped up to fourth from Ferrari team mate Felipe Massa, whose left front-wing endplate was damaged in a collision with the slow-starting Mercedes of Nico Rosberg, whose race went to pieces thereafter.

Vettel closed initially on Hamilton, but it soon became clear that the Englishman was not running into the massive tyre degradation that he had been anticipating, despite the high temperature throughout the 70 laps.

Hamilton was the first lead runner to pit to switch from soft to medium Pirellis, on the ninth lap, followed by Vettel on the 11th, Alonso on the 12th and Grosjean and Kimi Raikkonen on the 13th. That put Mark Webber into the lead after he’d started his Red Bull on the medium tyres, but as Hamilton regained second, Vettel lost crucial time behind Jenson Button’s medium tyre-shod McLaren.

When Webber pitted on the 22nd lap Hamilton went back into the lead until the 31st, and regained it three laps later when Vettel pitted again.

By half distance it was clear that the Mercedes was not going to fade as it had done in Germany, setting up a tense denouement as two-stopping Raikkonen came into the equation when Hamilton and Vettel made their final stops on the 50th and 55th laps respectively. By then Hamilton had escaped and was seven seconds clear of Raikkonen, who had his hands full on worn tyres fending off the Red Bull. 

It got close at times, but the Finn is no pushover and held on to second to repeat the two leading positions from 2012. Vettel had to be satisfied with third, annoyed with himself for damaging his front wing in the battle with Button, and must have pondered what might have been as Raikkonen immediately pulled off into the pit lane exit after crossing the line.

Webber had to do a late stop to switch to the soft tyres, and dropped back to a nonetheless excellent fourth after a strong run following his qualifying dramas.

Alonso clung on to fifth after a typically gritty race in a less than fully competitive Ferrari, and for the last 32 laps he had Grosjean within a second of him yet never yielded to the pressure. The Frenchman pulled off a terrific around-the-outside overtaking move on Massa at Turn 4, but later brushed Button’s McLaren in one of the top chicanes while following Vettel past it on the 24th lap. 

Later Grosjean received a drive-through penalty for gaining an advantage by running off the road while passing Massa, which ruined his chances of victory, and was also handed a 20-second post-race penalty for the incident with Button. However, as he held a 21.524 second advantage over the Briton at the flag, he retained his sixth place finish.

In one of McLaren’s strongest performances of the season Button held on for seventh ahead of Massa, with Sergio Perez in the other MP4-28 taking ninth as Pastor Maldonado’s 10th finally garnered a 2013 point for Williams.

Behind the FW35, Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg just held on for 11th after an earlier drive-through penalty for speeding in the pit lane, but he was only fractions ahead of the Toro Rossos of Jean-Eric Vergne, who had passed high-qualifying team mate Daniel Ricciardo with four laps to go.

Giedo van der Garde was a good 14th for Caterham, beating team mate Charles Pic, as Jules Bianchi headed Marussia team mate Max Chilton home in 16th.

Neither Force India made the finish; Adrian Sutil stopped after 19 laps with a hydraulic leak, and Paul di Resta stopped only a couple of laps from the finish. So did Rosberg, whose appalling afternoon ended with a fiery engine breakage in Turn 2 on the 65th lap. Valtteri Bottas’s Williams also wilted, as did Esteban Gutierrez’s Sauber.

Ahead of the summer break Vettel still leads the drivers’ championship battle with 172 points as Raikkonen moves ahead of Alonso with 134 to 133. Hamilton is fourth with 124 to Webber’s 105. In the constructors’ stakes, Red Bull have 277 to Mercedes’ 208, Ferrari’s 194 and Lotus’s 183.

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Lewis Hamilton Gets Hungary

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Lewis Hamilton gave Mercedes their seventh pole position of the season in Hungary on Saturday after a gripping shoot-out with Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel, team mate Nico Rosberg and Lotus’s Romain Grosjean - and didn’t even realise that he’d done it until he was completing his slow-down lap.

As the track temperature swung between a sweltering 47 and 49 degrees Celsius, Vettel set the initial Q3 pace with a lap of 1m 19.506s, with Hamilton closest to him on 1m 20.324s, but on their second runs the German only improved slightly, to 1m 19.426s, and that was not quite enough to dislodge Hamilton, who had taken his Mercedes round the Hungaroring in 1m 19.388s.

Behind them, Grosjean’s strong weekend form took him to third place with 1m 19.595s, just ahead of Rosberg on 1m 19.720s. Surprisingly, Fernando Alonso pushed his Ferrari ahead of Kimi Raikkonen’s Lotus, the Spaniard’s 1m 19.791s just shading the Finn’s 1m 19.851s. Felipe Massa completed the quick runners with 1m 19.929s in the second Ferrari for seventh in the line-up.

Daniel Ricciardo again showed his raw qualifying speed with 1m 20.641s for Toro Rosso, while Sergio Perez lapped his McLaren in 1m 22.398s, the only Q3 runner on medium compound tyres. At the back Red Bull’s Mark Webber was hampered by an inoperative KERS and slow upshifts in his Red Bull, and did just one lap, so that he can start Sunday’s race on whatever tyres he and the team choose from his 10th-place grid slot.

Rosberg and Hamilton had led the way in Q2 as Vettel failed to better his first-run time of 1m 19.442s, and the track temperature spiked at 50 degrees Celsius before settling back to 45 after the first runs. 

A flurry of late improvements by Ricciardo, Webber (despite his RB9’s problems), Massa and Perez pushed Force India’s Adrian Sutil, Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg and McLaren’s Jenson Button out of Q3, the two Germans lapping respectively in 1m 20.569s and 1m 20.580s, the Englishman in 1m 20.777s. Perez had managed 1m 20.545s for the final top 10 slot, a good recovery after having to take repairs following his morning shunt.

The others who failed to go through were Jean-Eric Vergne with 1n 21.029s for Toro Rosso, and the Williams duo of Pastor Maldonado and Valtteri Bottas on 1m 21.133s and 1m 21.219s.

As Rosberg and Hamilton also set the pace, Q1 had weeded out Esteban Gutierrez, who struggled to make up the time he’d lost by missing FP3 because of a problem that required his Sauber’s engine to be changed. The Mexican lapped in 1m 21.724s, a tenth slower than compatriot Perez who just made it through. 

Paul di Resta struggled yet again with his Force India’s set-up, and was a very disappointed 18th on 1m 22.043s, six-tenths off team mate Sutil. Behind them, the scrap between Caterham and Marussia was closer than ever. 

Charles Pic led it with 1m 23.007s for Caterham, from team mate Giedo van der Garde on 1m 23.333s, but Jules Bianchi was on their tail for Marussia with 1m 23.787s and his partner Max Chilton was only two-tenths of a second further back, with 1m 23.997s.

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Vettel Dominates Hungaroring

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Sebastian Vettel strengthened his hand before Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix by posting the fastest time in both of Friday's practice sessions as Red Bull dominated.

On both occasions Vettel spearheaded a Red Bull one-two, finishing a quarter of a second faster than team-mate Mark Webber in the opening session at the Hungaroring.

Come the second session, and the switch to the soft Pirelli tyre – the quicker of the two compounds being used this weekend – Vettel improved his time by 1.5sec with a lap of one minute 21.264sec.

Webber at least managed to close the gap to just 0.044sec come the conclusion, but Vettel is so far looking on course to increase his current championship lead heading into Formula One's summer break.

As in FP1, a Lotus was third on the timesheet in FP2, but it was that of Romain Grosjean and not one of Vettel's two main title rivals in Kimi Raikkonen, who was down in eighth and 0.747sec off the pace.

Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, 34 points adrift of Vettel after nine of the 19 races, was again fourth fastest in his Ferrari, 0.162sec down, with team-mate Felipe Massa next up in fifth.

The Mercedes duo Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg improved to fifth and sixth, the former chalking up a day-high total – and a race distance – of 70 laps.

That was primarily due to Mercedes coming into this race on the back foot after being banned for last week's young driver test at Silverstone, where Pirelli's new range of tyres were initially tried.

Following a series of blowouts during the British Grand Prix last month, Pirelli were rapidly forced to revise their tyres, opting for a solution that comprises last year's structure with this year's compounds.

For Hamilton and Rosberg, the two sessions have been all about obtaining as much information as possible ahead of qualifying and the race.

At present, the team's run of six pole positions in the last seven races appears under threat from Red Bull and Vettel, who has won two of the previous three grands prix to open up his advantage over Alonso, with Raikkonen 41 points adrift.

Hamilton finished just over half a second down on Vettel, with Rosberg 0.727sec back, while McLaren's Jenson Button and Adrian Sutil in his Force India – on the occasion of his 100th grands prix – completed the top 10 behind Raikkonen.

Paul Di Resta, who struggled in session one with set up and found himself 1.5sec behind team-mate Sutil, at least improved in FP2, moving up to 11th on the timesheet and 0.222sec down on the German.

Marussia's Max Chilton, who sat out the morning run in favour of reserve Rodolfo González, was slowest of all, 5.383sec behind Vettel, and more importantly 1.5sec down on team-mate Jules Bianchi.

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