2012 Italian Grand Prix

Championship standings

Alonso leads the championship on 164 points after Belgium. Vettel is second on 140, Webber third on 132, Räikkönen fourth on 131, and Hamilton fifth on 117. Alonso’s lead over Vettel stands at 24 points with seven rounds remaining.

Previous race

Button won in Belgium with Vettel second and Räikkönen third. The result was Vettel’s first podium in five races and moved him back into second in the championship, leapfrogging Webber, Hamilton, and Räikkönen.

Between-race developments

Romain Grosjean has been banned from this race by the FIA following a first-lap collision at Spa that triggered a four-car crash at La Source. Jérôme d’Ambrosio, Lotus F1’s reserve driver, replaces him.

Maldonado carries two five-place grid penalties — one for jumping the start at Belgium and another for causing an avoidable collision with Timo Glock. Di Resta has a five-place penalty for an unscheduled gearbox change.

Entrants

Ma Qinghua drives for HRT in first practice, becoming the first Chinese driver to participate in a Formula One Grand Prix weekend. Bottas (Williams) and Bianchi (Force India) also take part in FP1.

Tyre choices

Pirelli brings the silver-banded hard compound as the prime and white-banded medium as the option. Both DRS zones are slightly shorter than last year: the first zone by 50 metres and the front-straight zone by five metres.

Practice

FP1: Schumacher led ahead of Button and Rosberg. D’Ambrosio finished fifteenth, 1.5 seconds off the pace. Ma Qinghua was slowest, nearly six seconds behind. Both Alonso and Maldonado suffered technical problems and stopped on-circuit.

FP2: Hamilton topped the session, narrowly ahead of Button and Alonso. Alonso’s running was disrupted by gearbox and brake issues. Schumacher dropped to tenth following multiple off-track excursions; he was highly critical of the speed bumps at the Variante della Roggia chicane, claiming they posed a safety hazard. Red Bull were consistently slow through the speed trap; neither Vettel nor Webber appeared in the FP2 top ten.

FP3: Hamilton was fastest again, separated from Alonso by just one thousandth of a second. Di Resta was third. Vettel suffered power loss on his final lap at the Roggia chicane. Red Bull remained uncompetitive in all three sessions.

Weather

Dry and sunny — 28°C air temperature, 40°C track.