Red Bull Commands the Race Again at the Italian Grand Prix

Sebastian Vettel put on another great performance at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza and led nearly every lap. Fernando Alonso fought incredibly hard and briefly led the race, but he was unable to convert his effort into a win and took second. Mark Webber battled with transmission problems late in the race, but still took third. Felipe Massa had a great start of the race and was up to second early in the race. But he let his teammate pass and finished fourth. Nico Hulkenberg performed amazingly in his SauberSauberSwitzerland, 1970 > present21 models
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to take fifth.

The race immediately got exciting with a great start for Felipe Massa. He was up to third in first corner and in second a few corners later. Webber was in third and Alonso behind him through the first few corners.

Farther back in the field, there was contact between Paul di Resta and Romain Grosjean. Di Resta was forced to retire before one lap had been completed, but Grosjean was able to continue. Also on the opening lap, Raikkonen took damage to the right front wing and pitted on the first lap after he hit Sergio Perez entering the first corner. Perez was able to stay out.

Alonso forced passed Webber on the outside of one of the chicanes on lap there to take third place. He knocked off a bit of wing off of Webber to do it, but it was not a vital enough piece to force Webber to pit.

By lap nine, Alonso had gained enough time to get within range of Massa, and like a dutiful soldier, Massa moved over for Alonso to take the fight to Vettel. The gap between Alonso and Vettel was 4.9 seconds.

Hamilton had to pit from 11th place on lap 12 because telemetry showed that he had a slow tire puncture. It is just more bad luck for him in Italy.

Jean-Eric Vergne had a broken driveshaft on lap 16 to retire from the race.

The first cars began pitting for new tires on lap 23, but the top five drivers stayed out a little longer. Vettel was in on lap 24, and Alonso remained out pushing for all he could. Alonso pitted a few laps later and came out ahead of Vettel, but it did not matter for long. Vettel was able to get around Alonso and retake the lead. Within 10 laps of the pit stops, Vettel had a 10-second lead over Alonso. Webber was in third, and Massa was in fourth. 

With six laps to go, Webber in third and Raikkonen in 11th were having problems. Webber's engineers were telling him to short shift between second and third, and Raikkonen was having KERS problems. Whatever transmission issues that Webber was having were not obvious because he was keeping pace with Alonso and was challenging him.

Vettel held the lead through to the end and won another race this season.

In the drivers' points standings, Daniel Ricciardo advances one place to 13th; Nico Hulkenberg moves up one spot to 14th, and Jean-Eric Vergne drops two spots to 15th.

In the constructors' championship, FerrariFerrariItaly, 1947 > present233 models
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improves one spot to second place and overtakes MercedesMercedes-BenzGermany, 1924 > present197 models
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.