Alonso storms the Monza Pole

ernando Alonso had it all covered this afternoon in qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix, leading the way in all three qualifying sessions and claiming a the Pole Position from team-mate Lewis Hamilton with a best lap of 1:21.997s.

Alonso’s advantage was trimmed a little in the final 15 minute phase, but as Lewis Hamilton crossed the line with an improvement - but not a place gain - Alonso was able to back off secure in the knowledge that he had secured his second Pole Position of the season.

Hamilton trailed Alonso all session long, but did manage to reduce the gap to Alonso to just 0.037s. Behind, Ferrari were some way off the pace with Felipe Massa half a second back in third position.

Kimi Raikkonen took over the spare Ferrari following his shut in the morning practice session. With the race engine fitted to the spare car, no penalties could be applied, but he will be disappointed his first Italian Grand Prix for Ferrari from fifth position. Limited track time due to hydraulic issues combines with the crash this morning did not help his cause.

Nick Heidfeld predicted ahead of the race weekend that BMW Sauber may be able to challenge Ferrari this weekend and will therefore be delighted to qualify fourth; splitting the two F2007s. Robert Kubica starts sixth in the second F1.07.

Heikki Kovalainen starts seventh in the leading Renault and given the six-tenths gap to Kubica, may well be the first of those opting to make the 53-lap Grand Prix a one stop event. Team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella was aiming to improve on 14th position but was unlucky to find Rubens Barrichello bouncing through the gravel in the second round of qualifying. Fisichella did not improve and therefore starts his home event in a dismal 15th position.

Nico Rosberg has been strong all weekend long and starts eighth in his Williams Toyota, five positions ahead of team-mate Alex Wurz. Jarno Trulli worked hard to make it into the final top ten shoot out and did a solid job to qualify his Toyota ninth. Ralf Schumacher’s roller-coaster season continued and he starts a poor 18th in the sister TF107.

In low downforce trim, the troublesome Honda RA107 has its aero deficiencies masked somewhat and Jenson Button pushed hard to make it into the final phase of qualifying and will start the event from tenths position on the grid. Barrichello starts 12th.

Over at Red Bull Renault, it was a case of mixed fortunes as Mark Webber will line up 11th while David Coulthard starts 20th after the RB3 snapped away on entry into the first chicane. With a suspected gearbox issue it was session over for the Veteran racer.

Anthony Davidson led the way at Super Aguri Honda with the 14th fastest time ahead of Fisichella and Sebastian Vettel who was able to bully his Toro Rosso into the second qualifying session. Takuma Sato starts 17th ahead of Schumacher and Tonio Liuzzi in the second Toro Rosso.

It was a difficult session for the Spyker Ferrari team with Adrian Sutil some way off the pace in the new B-Spec car and 21st on the grid, while Sakon Yamamoto hardly helped his cause by spinning his Spyker into the barriers under braking into turn one.

So far, a relatively comfortable time for Fernando Alonso and the McLaren Mercedes team. It remains to be seen if Ferrari has anything to offer in the way of a challenge in race conditions.

Source: f1-live.com