Hamilton takes pole position for Italian GP

MONZA, Italy: Lewis Hamilton took pole position for today’s Italian Grand Prix after setting the fastest time in qualifying, while teammate Jenson Button made it a McLaren one-two. Amid speculation about his future and a possible switch to Mercedes, Hamilton took his fourth pole of the season in a time of 1 minute, 24.010 seconds, just over a tenth of a second faster than Button.
Ferrari driver Felipe Massa was third, but championship leader Fernando Alonso had another disappointing day. The Spaniard, who was just a thousandth of a second behind Hamilton in the final practice, will start way back in 10th position.
Hamilton has been in good form all weekend, topping two of the three practice sessions, a week after getting into trouble with his team after posting sensitive data on Twitter. He has yet to commit to staying with McLaren, which has fueled talk about a possible move to Mercedes.
“I haven’t had any distractions this weekend, so it’s been quite positive...pretty smooth so far,” Hamilton said. “It’s been a tough weekend but we’ve managed to work on the setup and the guys done a fantastic job. So, congratulations to the team. It’s great obviously for the team to have me and Jenson at the front.” Hamilton, however, wasn’t completely satisfied with his performance in qualifying.
“I think practice was a lot better for me,” he said. “I had much, much better laps in practice but I can’t complain. Generally I didn’t think that lap was anywhere near good enough.
“But nonetheless I’m happy and I’m really happy for the team because they’ve been doing a fantastic job.” It is McLaren’s 63rd front row sweep in Formula One — a record for the sport. It is also the team’s third all front row this season.
“It’s fantastic for the team,” Button said. “I think the last few races have really shown our strength and qualifying both of us on the front row is great. I don’t know if any other team has been able to do that this year.
“We’ll start thinking about tomorrow in a little while. Even being on the front row, it’s not going to be an easy race here but it’s the best place to be.” On Friday, Alonso endured a suspected engine failure in the first practice and a brake problem and gearbox failure during the afternoon session.

His problems seemed to be behind him in the morning, but more technical issues saw him finish nearly 1.5 seconds behind Hamilton in qualifying.
It could be another troublesome weekend for Alonso, who saw his lead over Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel cut to 24 points last weekend after his race was ended following a wild multi-car accident caused by Lotus driver Romain Grosjean at the start.
There will be some consolation for the Spaniard in that Red Bull has struggled as well so far at Monza. Vettel finished outside the top 10 in all three practices, although the defending champion was sixth in qualifying.
Paul Di Resta qualified fourth, but will be pushed down to ninth because of five-place grid penalty for changing gearbox.
A gearbox is supposed to last five consecutive races under FIA regulations, but the Force India team was forced to place a new one in Di Resta’s car after last weekend’s Belgium Grand Prix.
Five-time Monza winner Michael Schumacher, who was fastest in the first practice session, finished fifth. He moves up a place because of Di Resta’s penalty, as do Vettel, Nico Rosberg, Kimi Raikkonen and Kamui Kobayashi.