Mark Hughes' GP report: Vettel's rivals make it easy

This was a race all about timing: the timing of the gearchanges on the Red Bulls, which gave a race dominated by Sebastian Vettel its only hint of tension; and the timing of when during the weekend you had your problems.

Mercedes had its dramas during practice and qualifying, trapping Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton behind slower cars in the race; Red Bull had its glitches after Vettel and Mark Webber had secured the front row, allowing them a buffer of protection.

If Hamilton had qualified properly on Saturday he could have capitalised upon Vettel's dramas. But he hadn't - he'd started 12th instead, had to pit early for a debris-induced puncture, forcing him into a two-stop strategy that was much slower than the favoured one-stop and, after a flurry of late passes, completed his fightback to come home ninth.

Had Rosberg not missed all of the third practice session to a hydraulics problem, meaning he didn't get to drive the car on low fuel until qualifying, he'd not have had the understeer, would likely have qualified on the first couple of rows and would not have been stuck behind Nico Hulkenberg's overachieving Sauber in the race.

In addition, Hulkenberg's timing in delivering such a great performance in qualifying and race at just the moment a Ferrari or Lotus opportunity may be opening up was perfect.

The Ferrari/Alonso relationship was under the microscope © XPB

Fernando Alonso's timing in being caustically critical of Ferrari over the radio - with company Luca di Montezemolo watching on, a proud and powerful man perceiving another embarrassment from a disrespectful employee and in front of his home audience - was probably less well-timed. His drive to second place, keeping Vettel within sight while fending off the other Red Bull of Webber, was a well-timed piece of damage limitation.

But it might have been yet better. The ongoing tension between Alonso and the team, his distrust that it will always make the correct calls - only intensified by the team's mistimed qualifying run the day before - led him to question the timing of his pitstop, and to extend such distrust further than hindsight says he should have done. In that time his deficit to Vettel grew from 5.3 seconds to 10.3. It was that big, comfortable margin that allowed Vettel to back off late in the race when the timing problems of his gearbox began to resurface.

The timing and coordination of Ferrari's start system is better than Red Bull's, and that played its part in the opening seconds as Vettel bogged down slightly. Felipe Massa made a scorching start from row two and was able to run side by side with the Red Bull as they braked for the Rettifilo chicane - on the outside.

Webber's start had been less bad than Seb's and so he was making ground on him on the inside. "I couldn't see where Mark was," explained Vettel, "so I tried to brake as late as I could but make sure he had enough room."

It's the biggest-braking first turn of the season, the cars are loaded with the least downforce and were, of course, heavily packed with fuel. The front-right was badly locked even before Vettel had to begin turning. He eased off the pressure slightly, unlocking the wheel to get him the turn-in, but it locked again as he fought to make the apex. He exited the turn in the lead, but with a heavily flat-spotted tyre. Massa cut across Webber to take up second, this pair heading Hulkenberg, soon to be passed by Alonso, then Rosberg, Daniel Ricciardo's Toro Rosso and the rest.

Further back, Sergio Perez had cut across the bows of Kimi Raikkonen's fast-starting Lotus under braking. Kimi could brake no harder than he already was and hit the back of the McLaren, incurring wing damage to the Lotus, and sending Perez straight on across the escape road.

Raikkonen sends debris flying as he trips over Perez © LAT

Raikkonen would be in at the end of the first lap for a new nose, rejoining at the back, now on a set of fresh option tyres rather than on the hard rubber on which he'd started. He'd been one of only three - together with Hamilton and Sauber's Esteban Gutierrez - to start on the prime tyre. Last year this was much the faster choice, but not so this time. With the track temperature a relatively low 29 degrees C - cooled by a rain shower shortly before the start - it took a long time to heat up and, with the standard-gauge Pirellis, rather than last year thin-gauge, heat build-up in the option tyre was not such an issue.

But the first-lap stop effectively forced Raikkonen onto a two-stop race. There was no way either tyre - especially the medium - could last the remaining 52 laps. A one-stop is invariably the favoured Monza strategy but this year, with the lower pitlane speed limit, was even more so. Tyre degradation is low and the long pitlane imposes a stop loss of around 25 seconds.

Hamilton was forced to take the inner sleeping-policeman route across the first chicane to avoid the damage triggered by Perez, and it's suspected that a piece of the debris from there caused the slow puncture in the right-front he would later suffer and which forced him onto the slow two-stop strategy too.

The first-lap incidents weren't over yet. After the slipstreaming pack screamed up through the flat-out Curve Grande - the Monza trees echoing to a herd of Formula 1 V8s for the last time - and into the braking zone for the Roggia chicane, things got a little too compressed. Paul di Resta misjudged things and hit the back of Romain Grosjean's Lotus hard enough to pluck off the Force India's left-front wheel, putting him out on the spot. A bad bit of timing.

Through the Lesmos, down the dip under the cover of trees under the crumbling banking, through the high-speed left/right/left flick of Ascari and down to the fourth-gear narrow entry of Parabolica, flicking up quickly through the next three gears onto the pit straight, Vettel was leading Massa by over a second already and was no slower than the Ferrari at the end of the long straight.

That big stretch to the long seventh gear in the Red Bull - and the accompanying software changes that are made when it has replaced a shorter seventh, like that used on Friday - is suspected to have had something to do with the problems Red Bull experienced with the fifth/sixth/seventh ratios and associated dog rings after qualifying. They were replaced in the cars of both Vettel and Webber before the race.

"Obviously that was a concern to us," said Red Bull team boss Christian Horner, "especially as we hadn't established the cause." But for now the gearboxes were fine; what was troubling Vettel were the severe vibrations feeding through the car from that heavily flat-spotted front tyre. They were monitoring it even as Vettel continued to pull clear of Massa.

Alonso and Webber gave each other just enough space © XPB

Meanwhile, Alonso was on the move. "He just got into the rhythm a little quicker than me," said Webber. Alonso tried a pass at the first chicane into the third lap, not quite making it but forcing Webber to take a compromised line. Alonso got the power down better and ground ahead to the right as they exited Curve Grande.

As ever when these two get together, there were only inches to play with. Mark tried to squeeze the Ferrari out on the approach to the Roggia chicane, but Fernando was coming regardless, staying far enough alongside that he could turn in with him, now on the inside for the second part of the chicane. "The chess match is over at that point," accepted Webber. "You have to concede and take the fight to another part of the race." As they tried to squeeze through there, Webber snagged his right-front wing against the Ferrari, damaging it slightly.

"It's only possible to do that [move] with experienced and respectful drivers," said Alonso. "You'd never try that move with some others."

With the Ferraris running second and third and the wrong guy ahead - from a championship perspective - it was only a matter of time before Massa pulled aside for Alonso and this duly happened into the Rettifilo chicane beginning lap eight. By which time, there was realistic hope in the Ferrari pits. They'd heard the radio message to Vettel that his right-front was 'not looking good'. It was looking as if Vettel might have to convert to a two-stop (slower over a race distance by around 10 seconds). To avoid this, he needed to get to around lap 20 on the damaged tyre.

Vettel was taking care to nurse it, yet continued to ease away from Alonso at around half a second per lap. The closely-matched Massa and Webber gradually fell a little way adrift of Alonso but pulled clear of Hulkenberg and Rosberg, the Mercedes unable to find a way past the immaculately-driven Sauber.

They in turn were pulling away from Ricciardo, taking care to eke out the rear-tyre life of the low-winged Toro Rosso, and in the process costing time to the potentially faster McLaren of Perez. Jean-Eric Vergne would retire the second Toro Rosso on the 14th lap with a broken transmission.

This released Jenson Button to close up to the back of his team-mate, having already passed the struggling hard-tyred Hamilton even before Lewis was called to the pits because of that slow puncture. Lewis's radio wasn't working and he wasn't even aware of the puncture the team could see on the data, so it took a couple of pit-signal prompts before he responded. He rejoined near the back on a fresh set of options, not so far behind the similarly delayed Raikkonen, and they were soon scything through the lower pack together, the fastest cars on track for much of the time. If only they had qualified well.

Raikkonen and Hamilton mounted parallel fightback drives © XPB

"It's frustrating," said Lotus trackside chief Alan Permane. "It's a mystery where the speed went in qualifying. Because on Friday we were quick, on Sunday we were quick. Kimi was basically faster than Alonso from the time of his stop and only very slightly slower than Vettel." Instead he would spend his afternoon, like Lewis, making up place after place only then to have to surrender them with a second stop and do it all over again.

By lap 20 Button - whose car had been the subject of a replacement of two lifter pumps inside the fuel tank shortly before the start - was within a couple of seconds of team-mate Perez's eighth place and lapping faster. He was brought in on the following lap and fitted with a fresh set of primes. Perez came in a lap later and would probably have emerged still ahead but for a problem with the right-front that cost a couple of seconds. Ricciardo had pitted on the same lap as Perez and emerged still just ahead of a McLaren pair that was now headed by Jenson.

Button's stop created the perfect gap for Vettel - who had succeeded in nursing his damaged right-front long enough to stay with the one-stop strategy, all the while staying comfortably clear of Alonso - to drop into and the Red Bull duly came in for its primes on lap 23. He was followed 11 seconds later by the other Red Bull of Webber! Impressively, the Red Bull boys turned around their cars in 2.6s and 2.7s respectively, which not only got Vettel out in clear air and on healthy tyres, but allowed Webber to leapfrog Massa.

Red Bull's double-shuffle had caught Massa's crew on the hop. All it could do was respond next time through, but Webber's strong out-lap pace ensured the Ferrari was a couple of seconds behind after it had pitted.

Alonso had yet to pit and was now leading the race. They were calling him in, but he wasn't sure they should be. He doubtless recalled how in Monaco a couple of years ago they'd called him in as he was setting purple (outright fastest) sector times and that, if they'd just let him continue doing so for another couple of laps, he'd have won the race instead of finishing third. So he questioned the call - in Italian. He asked why he should come in just as he was setting green (personal best) sector times. Besides, Ferrari was a little nervous of its performance on the hard tyre and figured it might take a time to bring them up to temperature.

With Webber going quickly, Alonso gambled on staying out for another three laps. But after the second of them it was clear that the fresh hards on the Red Bulls - and Massa's Ferrari - were significantly faster than Fernando's used mediums. He pitted on lap 27 and all those extra three laps had done was increase his deficit to Vettel by five seconds. He got out only just in time to prevent Webber leapfrogging him for second.

Vettel was able to relax up front © LAT

Vettel now led Alonso by 10s, with Webber and Massa right behind. Just behind them was the out-of-sequence Raikkonen. Kimi made his stop on lap 30, dropping him back down to 14th, but with lots of slower cars not so far ahead of him.

Hamilton, the other two-stopper, had by now been allowed past by team-mate Rosberg into a temporary sixth and was closing down the remarkable Hulkenberg, who had made not even a hint of error under unrelenting pressure from Rosberg. After a couple of failed attempts at the end of the DRS zones, Hamilton was finally able to pass the Sauber around the inside of Curve Grande after forcing Hulk to get off line defending out of Rettifilo. Hulkenberg understood this wasn't for ultimate position because of the extra stop Lewis would have to make, so he simply reverted to keeping Rosberg at bay.

Quite some way behind this struggle, Ricciardo continued with a similarly faultless, but slower, display. The Toro Rosso's rear tyres needed to be conserved given its low wing level, leaving Button and Perez stacked up behind and frustrated. This in turn allowed Grosjean to catch up to the back of their train and, on lap 38, the Lotus dived inside Perez into the first chicane.

Hamilton pitted from his temporary fifth place later on this lap and rejoined 13th, just three seconds behind Raikkonen. They were soon upon the slower cars, and on lap 42 Kimi put a very committed move on Esteban Gutierrez down to the first chicane. Kimi was past Adrian Sutil's Force India a couple of laps later, as just behind them into Rettifilo Hamilton squeezed by Gutierrez and a lap later Sutil too. Hamilton, on newer tyres, was by now running considerably faster than Raikkonen and closing him down even as the Lotus was catching the McLarens. Grosjean had now picked off Button to go eighth but then found the fast-down-the-straights Ricciardo an impossible blockage.

Thinks were starting to get interesting around the Red Bulls. That transmission problem had returned in a slightly different guise. Webber's car in particular was showing a reduction in gearbox oil pressure but there were worrying symptoms from both cars. Vettel was complaining that the 'box wasn't responding properly on downshifts and his engineer confirmed they could see the changes were out of sequence with the paddle request. He was told to short-shift, particularly from fifth to sixth. Webber was told to do so between second and third gears. The red flashing rainlights of both Red Bulls were on, signifying the softer, slower gearchanges of the wet-weather map - just to keep the strain off the transmissions as much as possible.

Wily old Alonso, upon seeing Vettel's light, understood its significance and was soon radioing in that the light was distracting him - for the benefit of the race director who doubtless shook his head in amusement. "What?" said an amused Vettel upon hearing of this in the press conference. "You complained about the red light?"

"Well, yeah," answered Alonso. "It was disturbing a little bit. Obviously it's a very strong light with no rain."

Alonso, Vettel and Webber on the podium © LAT

"It's not as strong as [the light in this room]," countered a disbelieving Vettel.

"Sebastian's not used to having a car in front so he doesn't know how it feels when you are behind and it's always flashing," explained Alonso. "Sometimes you just have to touch a button by mistake and it comes on so I was asking if he could switch. So the whole race I had it flashing in my eyes."

"Yes, I was trying to get away from you so that it wouldn't be disturbing you so much," closed Vettel. Even his comic timing was perfect.

Alonso had surely been trying to get the more aggressive shift map imposed back upon the Red Bull, a little illustration of his relentless tenacity.

"I had that 10-second gap I could play with," said Vettel, "so it wasn't as serious at it might have been."

As Vettel did that and Webber was forced to call off his attack on Alonso, Hamilton was looking for a way by Raikkonen, trying but failing at the end of the pit straight into lap 48 - with five to go - but succeeding a lap later around the outside of Curve Grande.

Next in Hamilton's sights: Perez - done into Rettifilo. A lap after that, Button was passed into the same turn as, just behind them, Raikkonen was doing the same to Perez. Kimi then had to get defensive from Sergio's counter-attack up to Roggia. It was thrilling stuff, but all for 11th place.

Into the last lap Hamilton took a desperate dive on Grosjean into that first turn but locked up and was forced to miss part of the corner, putting him momentarily ahead but obliging him to surrender the place, which he duly did. This all relieved Ricciardo of any pressure from Grosjean through the last lap.