Four men could become world champion in Abu Dhabi this weekend. McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton has only an outside chance, but Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and Red Bull’s Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel are all real contenders
The paddock at the Yas Marina Circuit is one of the best of the season and is always abuzz with characters, which this year embraced Spanish and Bahraini royalty, FIA President Jean Todt, and the majority of each team’s senior management including McLaren’s Ron Dennis, Ferrari’s Luca di Montezemolo and Piero Lardi Ferrari and Red Bull boss Dietrich Mateschitz…
Drivers: Fernando Alonso (Ferrari), Rubens Barrichello (Williams), Jenson Button (McLaren), Vitantonio Liuzzi (Force India), Jarno Trulli (Lotus).
Q: Jarno, your home race. Tell us what it means to you. New team and all that.
Jarno Trulli: Yeah, it is always great to be back in a sunny Monza. We know Monza can also be very rainy and wet and no-one really enjoys that kind of circumstance. I enjoy Monza as it is a special atmosphere…
Fernando Alonso comes to Monza under the greatest pressure to deliver a strong result to keep Ferrari in the hunt for the world championship. And yesterday he admitted here that this race, and the next in Singapore, will have a crucial effect on his and the Scuderia’s chances…
Sebastian Vettel turned the tables on McLaren at Monza on Friday afternoon by setting the fastest time so far of 1m 22.839s, but the Red Bull driver was only 0.076s faster than Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and 0.222s ahead of Felipe Massa in the second F10. Soon after Massa had gone fastest with 1m 23.061s he was deposed by Alonso with 1m 22.915s, before Vettel displaced both.
McLaren’s MP4-25 was tipped to be the fastest car around Monza, and it may yet prove so. However, as the British team experimented with F-duct versus non F-duct configurations on Friday afternoon, Hamilton and Button found themselves outpaced by arch rivals Red Bull and Ferrari. We take a team-by-team look at early progress in Italy
Fernando Alonso gave the tifosi what they came to Monza for on Saturday, as he pipped McLaren’s Jenson Button to pole position for the Italian Grand Prix. The Spaniard took over setting the pace in Q2, and went faster still in Q3, clocking the only sub-1m 22s lap with 1m 21.962s for Ferrari on his first run in the final session.
He failed to improve on that, as a good jump forward by high-downforce Button left the reigning champion second on the grid with 1m 22.084s.
After all the rain in Belgium on Friday morning and through lunch, it was dry for the second practice session during the afternoon, which was halted for a few minutes with a quarter of an hour to run because spectators were suspected to be in a dangerous area.
Adrian Sutil set the pace throughout for Force India, only to be upstaged right at the end when Fernando Alonso bettered him by 0.125s in the Ferrari. The Spaniard lapped in 1m 49.032s, compared to the German’s 1m 49.157s.
Ferrari’s Felipe Massa has admitted Red Bull were in a league of their own at last weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix. The Austrian team’s Sebastian Vettel clinched pole position in Budapest with a 1.2 second margin, while his team mate Mark Webber took victory 17.8s ahead of Massa’s Ferrari colleague Fernando Alonso.
At the previous round in Germany Ferrari seemed to have the edge, with Alonso and Massa scoring a dominant one-two at Hockenheim, but just a week later at the Hungaroring Red Bull had returned to form. And the Brazilian believes this turnaround in performance can be explained by the characteristics of the two circuits in question.
1st Mark Webber (Red Bull), 1h41m05.571s; 2nd Fernando Alonso (Ferrari), 1h41m23.392s; 3rd Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull), 1h41m24.823s.
Q: Mark, a commanding win by the end of 70 laps. But it was probably the 43 you managed in your first stint that really set it up.
Mark Webber: Yeah, that’s right. The start we always knew was going to be a little bit tricky on that side. Fernando got a good start…
