Vettel takes eighth win in Italy; moves closer to title

MONZA, Italy-  After briefly battling Fernando Alonso for the lead in Sunday’s Grand Prix of Italy at Monza, Sebastian Vettel passed the Spaniard on lap five and went on to hold a 15 second final gap to win his eighth race of the season with Jenson Button in second, while Alonso ended up in third.

“It was very emotional for me today,” recalled Vettel afterwards. “The circuit is very important to me. You feel so blessed and everywhere is filled with people. The car was great and even today I though it was better.  This was very enjoyable and this was a very special win. Thanks to all the fans and it was very special for me.”

Events as they always are on this circuit got off to an exciting start as Alonso, who started the race from fourth, shot around both Vettel and Lewis Hamilton, down the front straightaway and took the lead even before the first corner. But while the fun was up front, HRT driver Daniel Riccardo stalled his car at the back of the grid, while his Teammate Vitantonio Luizzi was too overaggressive, managing to brake too late after getting blocked in by Heikki Kovalainen, sliding across the grass, right into Nico Rosberg and Vitaly Petrov, knocking them both out of the race. Rubens Barrichello was also involved, but managed to limp back into the pits and continued the race. Sauber driver Kamui Kobyaschi suffered the same fate as Barrichello, but Belgian Jerome D’ambrosio was not so lucky, and was another retirement in the race. This incident brought out the safety car for the next three laps.

But when the safety car finally pulled off the track, Vettel went into high gear and despite hitting some loose sand; the German managed to pass Alonso and never looked back for the rest of the race. But Vettel’s Red Bull teammate Mark Webber was not as fortunate as the Australian struck the other Ferrari of Felipe Massa, tearing off his front wing. But Webber went too fast to return back to the pits for repairs and overshot the final turn at Parabolica and went straight into the wall. However,  the race began to settle down as Vettel continued to extend his gap from six seconds on lap 11 to 15 by the checkered flag.

“It was a very fun race.” Stated Button afterwards. “It wasn’t for the lead, but it was a tough race and it was a lot of fun and electric.”

“We knew that if the car was good at the start, we maximized it, but we were not competitive for the win,” added Alonso. “But it was fantastic being on the podium, and it was a good result.”

Hamilton ended up fourth, just ahead of Michael Schumacher, who the Englishman had to battle all day, while Massa finished sixth. Jaime Algusuari was seventh, just ahead of Paul Di resta in the Force India Mercedes. Bruno Senna, in his second race with Renault was ninth, while Sebastian Buemi took the last point position.

Vettel can nearly clinch his second world championship in the next round in Singapore, but the 24 year old defending champion is not thinking about this too much.

“We have done so well this season, and our results have been amazing.” He said. “But we take every race one at a time and the next race will not be any different.”