Alonso leads Ferrari 1-3 on home soil

F1 Grand Prix, GP Italy, Autodromo Nazionale di Monza

Fernando Alonso has won his first ever GP for Ferrari in front of their home fans, the tifosi. After starting from pole, he chased Button to retake first place after the pitstops. Button came home second with the second Ferrari finished in third place.

For the first time this year, a Ferrari is on pole. Button is in second and was just one tenth slower than Alonso during qualifying, while Massa is third, ahead of Webber and Hamilton.

As the lights go out, Button quickly takes the lead, even before the first chicane thanks to much better accelleration with the higher downforce setup. Fernando is side by side with Massa and in the fight loses a small piece of his front wing.

Webber meanwhile made a bad start and saw Hamilton pass immediately as well, and after being too coutious under braking into the first chicane, Rosberg and Kubica make their way past the Red Bull as well. After the first lap, Weber is actually down to 9th.

At the Roggia chicane, Hamilton takes the inside of Massa, but the gap closes early as Massa turns left into the chicane, right behind Alonso. Hamilton bumped his right front wheel to the Ferrari's rear wheel and it became immediately apparent that the McLaren's right steering arm was broken. Hamilton carried on, but as he tried to turn into the first Lesmo, he went into the gravel and out of the race.

9 laps into the race, Button is still in the lead, but the Ferraris are right on his tail. In fourth place is Nico Rosberg, already 5 seconds down on the top three. Kubica is another 2 seconds down, followed closely by Hulkenberg, Vettel and Webber.

Sutil already made his first stop after a disappointing qualifying yesterday. He switched to the harder tyre and is in the back of the field after 11 laps.

On lap 12 Button sets his first quickest lap, followed by another one on lap 13.

By lap 14 Kobayashi is out of the race while Senna stopped with mechanical issues on the inside of the second Lesmo.

6 laps later Alguersuari gets a drive-through penalty for gaining an advantage through turn 2. That makes it easy for Adrian Sutil who was edging close to the Spaniard.

Vettel then starts to drop down the pecking order. Mark Webber easily rolled by ahead of the parabolica and the German consequently reported an engine problem, stunning as his car is equipped with a brand new engine for this weekend.

After losing 5 seconds in 2 laps, Vettel though seems to have found form again, possibly with a different engine setting.

In the pitlane meanwhile an HRT engineer got bruised after Yamamoto let the pitlane while the engineer was still reaching in the cockpit. An ambulance was driven in the pitlane, and in that time no one made their stop.

On lap 32 Liuzzi makes his stop to change for the prime, while all main challengers still continue on the option tyres they started with.

On lap 34, Kubica makes his stop, as well as Barrichello and Buemi. One lap later Rosberg and Webber make their stops, and Webber rejoins the track behind Kubica.

On lap 36 Button makes his stop, as does Hulkenberg. The first had a stop in 4.2 seconds, while at Wiliams they also did a great job as Hulkenberg gained a place on Kubica.

One lap after Button, Alonso makes his stop and upon exit puts his car right ahead of Button into the first chicane. Ferrari and Alonso just made it, while Massa one lap later just came back in third place, just as before his stop.

10 laps from the end, Hulkenberg and Webber started a little fight where Hulkenberg at one time easily retained his position after cutting turn 1. As the stewards decided to take no action, Webber had no choice to give it all, and three laps from the end he finally passed the Williams 4 laps from the end of the race.

Vettel meanwhile is still running in fourth place as he did not make his mandatory pitstop yet. That took him until the final lap, and he actually rejoined the track ahead of Nico Roberg, hence still in fourth place. A simply brilliant move that limited the damage for Red Bull.

Fernando Alonso meanwhile had an easy time after the pitstop and was 4 seconds ahead at the end of the race after a string of fastest laps.