Alonso on pole at Monza

Alonso on pole at Monza

Fernando Alonso has taken a commanding pole position for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. The Ferrari driver required just one complete run in Q3 to claim the top spot as no-one could beat his first flying lap. Incredibly, it is Ferrari’s first pole position since the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix, and Alonso’s first for the team in front of their loyal Tifosi.

Fernando said “Pole position at last, and it's come at the best possible place, here in front of all the Ferrari fans. We managed to save two sets of new soft tyres for Q3 and so we were able to post a time immediately before giving it absolutely everything on the second run. In fact, the time on the first run was good enough. The team and I have been without a pole for too long and two Ferraris in the top three is a fantastic result.”

Jenson Button and Felipe Massa join Alonso at the front of the grid, and both tried something different during qualifying.

Button has a very unusual set-up on his McLaren.  Monza is the fastest circuit in Formula One so most teams adopt very aggressive low downforce, low drag settings. Button has opted to run a high downforce set-up and is the only driver in the field to do so. This unusual configuration is only possible this year thanks to McLaren’s f-Duct which significantly reduces drag on the rear wing, but Jenson still has one of the slowest cars in a straight line. He is being forced to make up the lost time through the chicanes, and surprisingly did enough in qualifying to reach the front row.

Jenson is confident for the race since his set-up will give him better traction at the start, and will conserve his tyres later in the Grand Prix.

Massa also went for a unique strategy in Q3. Most drivers focus on just one flying lap on each ‘run’, but Felipe opted to try three in a row. Ferrari figured they could get more out of a new set of soft tyres after warming them up over a few laps. This turned out to be the case and Massa’s fastest lap of the three was his last, but the performance gain was not as much as he had hoped for and the Brazilian ended up three tenths behind his teammate.

The remaining championship challengers complete the top six, with Webber leading Hamilton and Vettel. Mark’s performance is impressive given that he lost a lot of track time during practice, and he will be thrilled to have a McLaren between him and the sister Red Bull. Hamilton and Vettel are predictably disappointed to be trailing their teammates.

Nico Rosberg is best-of-the-rest in his Mercedes, a long way ahead of Michael Schumacher who ended up in twelfth. Hulkenberg impressed in the first Williams to qualify eighth, ahead of Kubica and Barrichello who round out the top ten.

The usual characters will line up towards the back of the grid, although Liuzzi will start behind both Lotus drivers after a technical problem in Q1 ruined his weekend.

ITALIAN GRAND PRIX GRID

 1              Fernando Alonso                            

2              Jenson Button                  

3              Felipe Massa

4              Mark Webber

5              Lewis Hamilton

6              Sebastian Vettel                              

7              Nico Rosberg    

8              Nico Hulkenberg             

9              Robert Kubica                   

10           Rubens Barrichello         

11           Adrian Sutil                        

12           Michael Schumacher     

13           Kamui Kobayashi             

14           Sebastien Buemi                             

15           Vitaly Petrov                     

16           Jaime Alguersuari           

17           Pedro De la Rosa             

18           Jarno Trulli                         

19           Heikki Kovalainen           

20           Vitantonio Liuzzi                              

21           Timo Glock                         

22           Lucas Di Grassi  

23           Bruno Senna                     

24           Sakon Yamamoto

Posted by Martin Porter. - Follow him on twitter @mpondaweb.

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