Ferrari headed to their home race on better form than they had last year. With two race wins and eight podiums already, compared to just their two podiums for the whole of last season, the Tifosi were hopeful that the Prancing Horse would put on a good spectacle, and get themselves back on the podium. The team had used another three engine tokens to give them a strong upgrade on what is the fastest race of the season. This left them with four remaining tokens for rest of the year. In the week leading up to the race, Sebastian Vettel announced the birth of his and his partner’s second daughter.
2015 Italian Grand Prix Ferrari Review
Ferrari may have used three of their engine tokens to upgrade their power-unit for Monza, but Mercedes had used all their remaining seven, and the difference could be seen in the first practise session. Vettel, who was third-fastest, was 1.588 seconds off Hamilton’s time. Kimi Raikkonen was over half a second of his team-mate, in sixth-place. In FP2, the Ferraris closed the gap on the Brackley based outfit. Vettel was under eighth tenths off pace-setter Hamilton, again in third-place. Raikkonen was again in sixth-place, but a little bit closer to his team-mate’s time. In final practise, the two teams were much closer. Vettel spilt the Mercedes pair, and was under three tenths off Hamilton. Raikkonen could only muster the seventh-fastest time, but was within a second of the front runners.
The first part of qualifying saw both Ferraris post times on the prime tyres. Raikkonen was four tenths off pace-setter, Hamilton, in third-fastest, while Vettel posted the seventh-quickest time to make it into the next part of qualifying. Mercedes had to revert back to Nico Rosberg’s old engine, which left the German down on power, and vulnerable to attack from both Ferrari drivers. In Q2, both drivers posted faster times than Rosberg, and give the Tifosi hopes for a Ferrari on the front row, since Massa in 2012. In Q3, those hopes were realised, as Raikkonen posted the second-fastest time, 0.234 seconds off pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton. Vettel completed Rosberg’s misery by pipping his compatriot for third-place.
Raikkonen failed to get his car moving off at the start, due to clutch issues, and ended up in last place. Vettel was able to get alongside Hamilton into Rettifilo, but failed to execute a pass. Raikkonen has an impressive first lap, after his mishap, and made up six places, another two on the next to be in 12th position. On lap 4, he took 11th place from Ricciardo, on the run down to Parabolica. On lap 6, he took Sainz for 10th place at Rettifilo. He then passed Button for ninth-place, on the same lap at Ascari. On lap 20, Raikkonen took sixth-place, from Ericsson, at Rettifilo. Vettel, 15 seconds behind Hamilton, pitted, on lap 26, for the medium tyres. The Finn, who had yet to stop, got overtaken by Rosberg, who just had pitted, on the start/finish straight. On lap 29, the Finn pitted from fourth-place, but slowed down so much coming in that Mehri nearly ran into the back of him. Raikkonen came out in tenth, but quickly passed Ericsson for eighth-place, at Ascari. Vettel got told that he was in a battle to keep second-place from Rosberg, who was only three seconds behind with nine laps remaining. On lap 33, Raikkonen took seventh-place from Hulkenberg, and started to close on Perez. On lap 51, he passed the Mexican for sixth-place, at Rettifilo The threat of Rosberg vanished on the same lap, when the German’s retired due to a failure of his old seven-race old power-unit . This promoted Raikkonen to fifth-place. Vettel finished 25 seconds off Hamilton, who had been instructed to put in some fast laps in the closing stages, as they feared a time penalty for a tyre pressure infringement. This never materialised, and the result stood.
After a poor start, Raikkonen impressed and entertained the Tifosi with some great overtaking to get himself from last to fifth-place The biggest celebration of the day, though, was for Vettel. He had got his eighth podium of the season, and his first Italian one as a Ferrari driver. With only a 21 points gap to Rosberg, Vettel will be pushing in the last seven races to take second-place in the championship, a feat that no one would have predicted at the beginning of the year.
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