Signed, Sealed, Delivered

A one-two for McLaren at Monza was a dream result for the team in the trying circumstances that surrounded the weekend. And for once, we saw a race where differing strategies created a bit of intrigue.

With four races to go Ferrari's drivers dropped further out of the picture, but it's closer than it was at the front, with everything to play for between the McLaren drivers, assuming that the FIA does not interfere with their fight.

McLaren's advantage was already apparent in the previous week's testing. Nevertheless Ferrari folk remained bullish about their prospects going into the race weekend, and indeed the red cars topped the times in the Friday morning.

However, the afternoon gave a much clearer picture of how things stood, especially over longer runs, and McLaren was ahead once again. It was certainly apparent that McLaren had an advantage over the kerbs.

"We worked very hard to address the challenges of Monza," said Ron Dennis. "And that is one of the challenges, the ability for the car to ride the kerbs."

Martin Whitmarsh confirmed that: "I don't think we're giving away too many secrets in saying that for traction and riding kerbs you want soft compliance in the suspension, and in F1 cars the challenge of achieving that is you have to have aerodynamics which allow you to do just that.

"People in chassis dynamics, the suspension team, aerodynamics, they all have to work together to achieve it. I think we've made some good progress in the last few months, and we'll keep working hard."

Ferrari suffered another blow on Saturday morning when Kimi Raikkonen had his huge crash just a few laps into the session. The first impression was that he'd suffered a failure of some sort at the rear, but later the Finn admitted that he'd locked a brake on a bump.

Not the first mistake he's made this year, although not quite as expensive as the one in Monaco qualifying. Nevertheless it meant that the spare car was pressed into service, with the race engine from the crashed car fitted to avoid penalty.

All of this meant the team was a little on the back foot going into qualifying. Kimi had missed out on some critical mileage, and he was also suffering with a sore neck.

Nevertheless Felipe Massa wasn't far off the McLaren pace in the first two qualifying sessions, and that gave the British team some food for thought.

One thing was clear - Alonso was quicker than Lewis on this track. That has happened before this year, only for Lewis to sneak ahead in Q3, the session that matters. But this time it didn't happen. Despite carrying an extra lap of fuel, Fernando stayed ahead, although not by much. And there was a safe margin to Massa in third, more than McLaren had anticipated.

"We could have gone longer in qualifying," said Whitmarsh. "If we look back on it, Lewis didn't have the best laps in Q1/Q2, Massa looked a bit quicker there.

"We thought they might go a fair bit short. We didn't want Massa in the way, but with the benefit of hindsight after qualifying we wish we had a bit more fuel in.

"We hadn't been excessively risky with the strategy, but we had separated them. Fernando was heavier, and has really been more comfortable with the car here this weekend than Lewis.

"I think generally over the course of the weekend it's been two or three tenths, and he was really very much on it. I think Lewis coped with that very well, he pushed very hard in qualifying to be as close as he was."

Raikkonen was significantly behind his team-mate in fifth, and Nick Heidfeld snuck in front of him. Even allowing for his uncomfortable morning, it was apparent that he had gone for a little extra fuel. The key question was whether it was enough to suggest that he was going to go for one early-ish stop - a perfectly legitimate strategy, even for a frontrunner.

For McLaren, stopping once was never going to be an option, as Dennis explained: "We were just trying to look after our tyres. If you've got inherent pace then there's obviously something absorbing that pace, which is the tyres.

"Of all the teams I think we're probably giving the tyres the hardest time, and therefore that's why we went two stops and felt, after all our testing, that was a better way to win the race. And it proved to be the case."

Whitmarsh was more explicit about the choices: "A one-stop strategy around here is probably around eight seconds quicker, so it was considered.

"The reality is nowadays for the quicker cars it becomes increasingly difficult, because the quicker cars are putting tyre load and strain into the tyres, And if you're one stopping you've got to spend a reasonable portion of your race on the option tyre, and you've got to make sure that's sufficiently durable."

That Kimi would be going for one stop was confirmed when his choice of the softer tyre for the first stint was revealed on the grid. Since it was the shorter of the two, it was logical to use up the less-favoured tyre and then have the more reliable medium tyre for the second, longer stint.

"Ferrari took an intelligent decision on that car," said Whitmarsh. "We thought they might one-stop. I think they weren't quite as quick as us here; we believed that's what they might do.

"I think we were fairly sure when the tyre heaters came off on the grid, seeing that Kimi was on the option tyre, we assumed at that point that he was probably stopping at lap 20-25, and would then one-stop it from there."

It's worth pointing out here a little rule tweak that Charlie Whiting added for Monza; frustrated at seeing the 10 fuel restricted cars crawling round at ever slower speeds on the reconnaissance laps to the dummy grid, while the other 12 runners with no need to conserve fuel are potentially going flat out, he introduced a minimum speed limit.

From now on everyone has to comply to a 120 percent rule, with the time measured from the safety car line at the pit exit to the safety car line at the pit entry, at which point the cars are slowing for the grid.

A couple of crucial things happened at the start. Firstly, Kimi got ahead of Heidfeld, which meant that the BMW man wouldn't be a factor.

And secondly, Lewis stayed ahead of Massa, although it was close. We saw some aggressive first laps from him earlier in the year, and this was another good one as he refused to give up after Massa initially got ahead.

He even had a little luck, surviving a little nudge from the Ferrari without a puncture. His trip across the chicane also went without penalty after the FIA deemed that he had little choice after the bump from Massa.

"It was a fantastic overtaking manoeuvre at the start," said Whitmarsh. "Having lost out in the initial launch to Massa, I think he did everything that was expected of him at the first corner..."

David Coulthard wasn't quite as lucky after tapping Giancarlo Fisichella, and the loss of his front wing and subsequent crash at Curva Grande on the second lap led to a safety car interlude.

This was a major blow to McLaren, because any such intervention serves to hinder two-stoppers because it reduces the number of laps they have to open a gap, and helps one-stoppers because it effectively lengthens their first stint. In fact it stretched out to lap six, enough to give everyone a couple of extra laps to their first stops.

"It helps the one-stopper," said Whitmarsh. "If you're on a two-stop strategy, it affects your ability then to open up a gap when you have a fundamentally quicker car. That was bad news for us, and that helped Kimi. Without that then we wouldn't have been under threat from Kimi on a one-stop."

The complexion of the race changed right after the green with Massa's retirement, the result of a damper-related rear suspension problem. Reliability has not been great at Ferrari this year, and this example could be blamed directly on kerb hopping, and indeed Kimi was warned to that effect on the radio.

It was interesting to note in the FIA's Sunday morning round-up of parts changed under parc ferme conditions that several cars had received attention as a result of kerb stresses and strains - including Massa's steering rack.

With Massa gone, Raikkonen came into the picture as Ferrari's main candidate, and he stayed uncomfortably close to the McLarens. The safety car had given everyone extra mileage, and Hamilton came in on lap 18, and Alonso two laps later, having once again done a good job of conserving fuel.

Raikkonen enjoyed a spell in the lead until coming in on lap 25, with 28 still to run. He was then fuelled to the finish, and it was now all about how far ahead the McLarens could get before their second stops.

As they approached it seemed that Alonso was safe, but Hamilton wasn't quite. And just to make things complicated, McLaren brought him in a lap or two earlier than planned. The reason was a tyre vibration, and after the expensive failure at Istanbul, neither team nor driver wanted to take any risks.

"The target was get to 28 seconds before the second stop," said Whitmarsh.

"That's the gap you needed so that you come out in front. In Lewis's case we obviously didn't quite achieve that. Lewis reported some vibration so we took an arguably conservative decision to pit him early. Whether we needed to or not the fact is after the event Lewis was able to cope with the situation quite brilliantly.

"Everything was moved from schedule because of the safety car period things move around. The reality is at the time we felt that was the way to go - we were on the edge with the tyres here in the way that we were pushing them, and we were right to take a conservative view after the issues we've had recently."

Dennis elaborated on the thinking in the pits: "We stopped a little early with Lewis. He was suffering a little bit with vibration, but since the incident with Kimi in Nurburgring we now monitor very carefully not so much how much vibration you get on a flat-spotted tyre, but we've done a lot of rig testing to determine what sort of forces become challenging for the suspension to accommodate.

"So we knew there was nothing unsafe with the vibration he was feeling, but it was a little bit uncomfortable, so we brought the stop earlier to handle that problem."

The bottom line was that the team knew that the premature stop would drop Lewis behind Kimi. The question was, what would happen after that? Both men would have identical fuel loads - ie enough to get to the flag - but Lewis would have new tyres that would be superior for a few laps, while Kimi's had already run 15 laps.

Dennis was adamant that everything was under control: "Even though we calculated that he would lose the second place to Kimi, with fresh tyres and our pace which was very good, we knew he should be able to get past him. It was a bit of a calculated risk, but he did a good job.

"That was absolutely predicted. Of course when you stop like that and you fall behind, and you know that you've got to have a much greater pace, for a period of time you think is it going to happen? Are we going to get the traffic? But in the end it unfolded well and I think the outcome was good."

That was an understatement. Lewis hit back almost immediately with a superb pass into the first chicane that appeared to catch Kimi unawares. It certainly wasn't as straightforward as he made it look.

"We're talking about Lewis Hamilton, so no situation is absolutely hopeless," said Whitmarsh. "But it was clearly quite tough. We know that particular piece of opposition quite well, we know how good Kimi is, and therefore it was a big ask to go out there and do what he did.

"Lewis has a great tactical mind, and he recognised that at that stage he was on the option tyre, recognised he had two laps and then potentially a bit of graining or the tyres going off, so he knew when to take the risk. That was his opportunity. Had he not nailed it then, then it may have been difficult subsequently.

"He knew it was close with Kimi, he knew it was close when he came in for that stop, and we were being conservative to some extent. We told him where Kimi was and that he was racing Kimi for second place.

"It was Lewis's skill, willpower and determination and bravery that just hustled through. It was a great bit of overtaking.

"He really did everything you could possibly expect. He knew that he had two laps when he possibly had a slight tyre advantage, and he had to hustle his way through. I don't think a lot of people were expecting that, and by the looks of things, I don't think expected it."

After that, Kimi slowed his pace, and the gap grew dramatically.

Whitmarsh: "Thereafter I think it was clear to Kimi that we had a quicker race car, and as is the way in modern F1 people throttle back and think about the next race.

"I think we had a competitive car, and we felt that we would be able to race very quickly today, we've been strong all weekend, Fernando in particularly has been very strong in practice, Lewis comparatively by his extraordinary high standards, was struggling a little bit, but he had a strong showing in qualifying."

"Kimi was suffering was suffering a little bit with his neck," said Dennis. "And obviously slowed dramatically. He dropped his pace by nearly two seconds, and really allowed us to conserve our engines for Spa.

"I think that it was a little difficult to say what their strategy would have been in normal circumstances, but clearly Kimi's accident was not very conducive to them getting the best out of their own situation, in the end we showed through testing and qualifying that we really had the pace here, I feel that it was a well-deserved win for the team as a whole."

Indeed it was, a great result on Ferrari's home ground, and a perfect riposte to the off-track controversy.

Monza was also a great weekend for Alonso, who didn't put a foot wrong. It was perhaps typical of his luck that despite his great performance, the focus was more on his team mate's pass for second place...

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