Race
A light shower of rain threatened to bring unpredictability and excitement to the Italian Grand Prix, but it failed to interfere with the race. Vettel drove to another typical victory, desperately holding onto the lead in the first corner and then driving away at the front to keep himself as far from any action as possible. After managing his pace a little in the first stint with a flat-spotted front tyre, he then stretched his lead after Alonso stayed out too long on his option tyres and kept out of trouble to take another easy win. Alonso once again raced hard to take a tough second place ahead of Mark Webber, getting past him with a daring move through the second chicane on lap 3 before holding him off through the rest of the race as the Australian came back strongly to round out the podium. The Front Runners
After locking heavily into turn one, Vettel did as he always does and built a gap to escape the challenge of Ferrari in pursuit. The flat spot slowed him down a little, but after the single pit stop he built a further gap, helped by Ferrari's decision to leave Alonso out. He managed a few minor issues with the gearbox to take another typical win. Webber had a good time as well; it went poorly to begin with as he lost out on the start, but he was able to beat Felipe Massa through the pit stops and then hassled Alonso hard to the end of the race, completing his final Italian Grand Prix by getting onto the podium for the first time. Alonso made a great start but found little way through, but on lap three made an excellent pass on Webber at the second chicane. Massa yielded easily shortly afterwards to give Alonso second place. He kept Vettel honest up to the stops, then stayed out to try and stretch their stint on the medium tyre with the aim of having fresher hard tyres to challenge with towards the end of the race. It didn't pan out sadly, but Alonso still took the maximum from the race. Massa had a solid weekend, building on his strong qualifying with a great fourth place. The podium only really slipped from him due to loss of time in the pit stop, else he might have had third, but he was still pleased with his afternoons work. Ferrari seized second place in the constructors back thanks to Mercedes poor afternoon, something to make the Italian outfit smile. Behind the leading four, Nico Hulkenberg made Sauber smile as he converted the stunning third on the grid into a fifth place finish, holding off the Mercedes of Rosberg right to the death to grab ten delicious constructors points for the Swiss outfit with fifth place. Both team and driver were elated at the result, and Hulkenberg has certainly made some noise that may get him a better drive for 2014. Nico Rosberg made the best of things for Mercedes on something of a weekend to forget for them. Their high-speed woes continued at Monza as they struggled for front running pace, and despite working hard Rosberg was unable to beat Hulkenberg to the flag as he took sixth. Lewis Hamilton, displaced by qualifying problems on Saturday, had it all to do and was unable to find sufficient space to maximise the decent pace he had. With radio problems he missed pit stops, and suffered a slow puncture that forced a change to a two-stop strategy that saw him running fast in the final laps, just getting into the points with ninth place. Ricciardo underlined the pace of Torro Rosso as he converted his seventh place grid slot into the same in the race, utilising their fantastic top speed to keep ahead of faster cars behind like McLaren. Vergne was also doing well, keeping ahead of Button and keeping up to those ahead before a transmission failure took him out of the race, his fifth DNF of the year and a disappointing loss of potential points. Lotus had a disappointing weekend when their pace didn't look bad at all; Grosjean made it through from his poor grid slot of 13th to take eighth and a few points, holding off Lewis Hamilton to the flag on the final lap.