Kimi Raikkonen finished the 53 lap Italian Grand Prix, in third place, but his appearance on the podium at the Prancing Horse’s home race was in doubt until the very last lap. His Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella just missed out on a points place crossing the line ninth. The race was dominated by the Brawn team, who finished first and second, Rubens Barrichello, taking his second win of the year, ahead of Jenson Button. With four races remaining, Ferrari is still third in the Constructors’ classification, with 15 points in hand over McLaren.

As usual at Monza, the predominant colour in the grandstands was Ferrari red, the devoted tifosi enthusiastically waving flags, caps and anything else they could find, before the start. Kimi Raikkonen started from the inside of Row 2 and Giancarlo Fisichella was making his Ferrari race debut from Row 7 in fourteenth place. When the lights went out, Kimi immediately attacked pole man Hamilton in the McLaren and got ahead of Sutil’s Force India to be second on the opening lap. Giancarlo also got a good start moving up three places to eleventh. Webber spun and retired in the Red Bull after tangling with Kubica. The order after two laps was Hamilton, Raikkonen, Sutil, Barrichelllo, Button, Liuzzi, Kovalainen, Alonso, Kubica, Vettel in tenth, then Fisichella, Heidfeld, Rosberg, Nakajima, Trulli, Glock, Buemi, Alguersuari, who started from pit lane and Grosjean, 19th and last.

Rosberg went down to last after pitting to repair accident damage on lap 4. Giancarlo lost a place to Heidfeld’s BMW to go twelfth and after six laps, Kimi trailed leader Hamilton by 3.5 and was one second ahead of Sutil. On lap 8, Kubica was shown the black and orange flag, meaning he had to come in and have damage to his car repaired as it was a danger to other cars. By lap 10, Sutil had closed the gap to Kimi to just 0.5 and three laps later it had grown to 0.7 while Giancarlo was back in eleventh, after Kubica pitted. Hamilton was the first to refuel on lap 14, promoting Kimi to the lead, as the McLaren rejoined fifth. Sutil pitted on lap 17 and one lap later, Kimi brought the F60 in. On lap 24, the two Brawns, yet to pit, were leading, Barrichello ahead of Button, while Hamilton was third ahead of Kimi, with Alonso fifth and Sutil sixth. Giancarlo was tenth.