Results and incidents last weekend at Spa mean that a little chink of light is appearing at the top end of the Formula One drivers’ championship. Can Mark Webber or Lewis Hamilton widen the gap, or someone else close it right back up at Monza?
Lewis Hamilton (GBR), McLaren – 1st, 182pts
He’s top – just – and Lewis is adding maturity to his well-known speed and competitive instinct. He refused to panic in Belgian GP qualifying, knowing that the McLaren would on this occasion have the ability to match the Red Bulls in race trim, and so it proved. Unlike some of his rivals, he’s rarely complained this season as the rest have displayed impetuosity and impatience, and now it’s delivering. After Monza, depending on results, we could have a two-horse race with himself and another driver showing class and maturity. The other horse? Well…
Mark Webber (AUS), Red Bull Racing – 2nd, 179pts
Had you asked Mark Webber at the start of 2010 if he’d see himself just three points off the top of the standings by GP Italy, having won more races – it’s four now – than anyone else during the year, and he’d probably have taken your arm off. With two of his other main rivals, team-mate Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button, colliding at Spa, and Fernando Alonso already in the wars earlier on, and suddenly 18pts in Belgium count for a lot. It may be the beginning of the autumn of his long career as he turns 34, but the end of autumn 2010 could yet be Mark’s finest hour if he nails it again at Monza.
Getty Images/Red Bull Photofiles
Robert Kubica (POL), Renault – 7th, 104pts
Kubica described his race in Spa as ‘incredible’, but that he was so positive about third place, when it should have been second but for a pitlane driver error, suggests that the Pole sees much more from this Renault, which remains the surprise package of the season even if it does now have the F-duct up and running. From an extremely doubtful beginning to 2010, where their lead driver almost got cold feet as the parent company sold out, Kubica’s exploits now mean the French outfit are in fifth place, just 23pts adrift of the defending constructors’ champions Mercedes, with Kubica an impressive seventh in the drivers’ reckoning.
Adrian Sutil (GER), Force India – 9th, 45pts
Not quite the splendid performance that almost saw a maiden win for the Force India team last year at Spa, only for poleman Giancarlo Fisichella to lose out – just – to Kimi Räikkönen in the Ferrari, but more useful points with a fifth place this year for Sutil, who kept his countrymen Nico Rosberg and seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher behind him in the Mercs, Sutil having started eighth. At a low-downforce track like Spa, the VJM03 car is one of the best, and as Monza is also a similar low-downforce circuit, expect more points in Italy for Sutil.
Fernando Alonso (SPA), Ferrari – 5th, 141pts
The long-awaited Alonso–Ferrari dream ticket has yet really to deliver this season, with just two wins for the Spaniard, but now we arrive in Italy, where the Tifosi expect – as if they ever do anything else. A mixture of bad luck, bad tactical decisions, bad driving (remember Alonso’s unforced error in Monaco) and the fluctuating developmental battle between the top teams, and it’s rather an unhappy picture for the Scuderia in 2010, a year where they thought a double charge for both championships would begin again in earnest after a troublesome 2009. With Webber and Hamilton not going away, a ‘home’ win in Monza presents Alonso with perhaps his last chance of realistically catching them and winning his own third world championship.
Read more over the coming weekend from Monza at our F1 Italy event page
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