Full race report: Monza Italian Grand Prix

Full Race Report:

Ferrari's Fernando Alonso leapt back into title contention after winning a thrilling battle with McLaren's Jenson Button in the Italian Grand Prix.

The Spaniard moves from fifth to third in the championship, 21 points behind Mark Webber of Red Bull, who is three ahead of McLaren's Lewis Hamilton.

Hamilton retired after a collision with Felipe Massa, who finished third.

Button stays fourth overall, ahead of Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel, with a win covering all five contenders.

Vettel finished fourth in a race that Red Bull had always viewed as damage limitation. Webber was sixth behind the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg.

The decisive moments of the race came around laps 36 and 37.

Button had led from the start after passing Alonso into the first chicane following a slow getaway from the Spaniard, who started from pole position.

Alonso tracked Button all through the first part of the race, with the Englishman's lead ebbing and flowing as the two traded fastest laps in a fascinating flat-out battle.

By lap 13, Button had eked out a lead of 1.6 seconds, but Alonso then came back at him and they were nose to tail by lap 20.

A series of fastest laps from Button stretched his lead to a second on lap 29, but again Alonso responded.

Button pitted first, on lap 36, with Alonso coming in next time around. A brilliant in-lap followed by a pit stop that was 0.8secs quicker than McLaren's meant Alonso exited the pits just ahead of Button.

He had to defend forcefully at the first chicane, but held Button off around that lap and then proceeded to pull away at a pace to which Button could not respond.

Instead, Button had to worry about Massa, who was slightly faster than him in the closing laps but was unable to get close enough to challenge.

Hamilton's hopes ended at the second chicane on the first lap as he was trying to take advantage of a battle between the two Ferrari drivers.

Alonso was delayed by his battle with Button at the first corner and Massa was able to get alongside him through the second, left-handed part of the chicane.

That gave Massa the inside line through the following Curva Grande, but Alonso was on the inside approaching the second chicane and held on to second position.

Hamilton, though, was right behind him, hoping to pass Massa on the inside, but as they turned into the corner he was not close enough.

Massa's rear wheel hit Hamilton's front and broke the suspension of the McLaren.

"I had a good start and gained a position," Hamilton said.

"In a realistic world I perhaps should've stayed there a while. I put my car up the inside and tried to get third - it was obviously a little bit too much. I'm very disappointed in myself and sorry for the team.

"I've got to try to collect my thoughts and move onto the next race. The championship is not over, but it's mistakes like I made today that lose world championships."

Vettel recovered from a brief engine glitch, which lost him a place to team-mate Webber, by making an ultra-late pit stop for a new set of tyres at the start of the last lap.

The extra time he spent out on the track leapfrogged him ahead of Webber, Williams's Nico Hulkenberg and Renault's Robert Kubica, all of whom he had been behind before they made their stops.

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Qualifying Report:

Fernando Alonso produced a stunning lap to grab Ferrari's first pole position of 2010 at the Italian Grand Prix.

The Spaniard was 0.122 seconds quicker than McLaren's Jenson Button at Monza to give himself a great chance of reviving his faltering title challenge.

Alonso's team-mate Felipe Massa was third ahead of Red Bull's Mark Webber, whose fourth was an excellent effort.

McLaren's championship leader Lewis Hamilton could manage only fifth place, with Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel sixth.

Alonso's fastest time of one minute 21.962 seconds came on the first of two runs in the top-10 qualifying shoot-out, at which point he was nearly 0.3 secs quicker than Button and 0.6 faster than Massa.

Defending world champion Button closed the gap on his second run, as Alonso was unable to improve his time, but could not find enough to snatch pole.

Alonso said: "Pole position was a nice surprise. When I stopped in parc ferme, they radioed and told me I was keeping the first position. But there were still some cars completing their laps, Jenson had gone pink [fastest of all] in the first sector and I thought, as had happened before, someone would go faster.

"It is a nice surprise and a fantastic feeling to get this first pole position for Ferrari.

"The first run was just to put a normal lap on the table and then try to risk more in the second run. But, as sometimes as happens in Monza, when you do a normal lap it is better than when you try to push because it is easy to make a mistake."

It was Ferrari's first pole position since the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix, and Alonso's first since Hungary last year, when he was driving for Renault.

The two McLaren drivers, meanwhile, adopted different strategies with Button choosing to set up his car to achieve more grip through the corners and less speed on the straight, while Hamilton chose not to use the F-duct in order to maximise his straight-line pace.

"We came here not quite sure which approach to take," said Button, "and I think our side [of the garage] made the right choice to run the high-downforce set-up with the F-duct.

"It's very tricky here, as Fernando said, and out of Ascari I got a bit of oversteer and ran wide off the circuit.

"But it's the first time I've been on the front row so I'm happy with second and the car's performance."

Massa, who controversially handed the lead to Alonso in the German Grand Prix in July, was more than 0.3 secs slower than his team-mate.

"When I put the soft tyres on in Q2, I could not do my best lap straight away - the best was my third lap. I said 'let's risk and try to do three laps', but in Q3 it didn't work as well as I expected.

"I was able to do one timed lap on my other set but it was not enough. We have a good car for the race - we've improved it massively," he explained.

Webber's performance was deeply impressive after the Australian suffered problems in practice.

He stopped out on the track twice, on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, and that meant he had not run on the softer of the two tyre choices - which the leading drivers used to set their grid positions - before qualifying.

To beat team-mate Vettel by more than 0.2secs in those circumstances made it one of the best laps of Webber's season.

"I would have taken that [at the start of qualifying]," said the Australian, who lies second in the drivers's standings, just three points behind Hamilton.

"We extended to a few laps on the option tyre in Q2 and we delivered, in a way, when it counted."

Renault driver Vitaly Petrov was given a five-place penalty after qualifying 15th for impeding Timo Glock's Virgin as he rejoined the circuit from the pit lane.

"I can only apologise to him if I held him up. I didn't see him coming up behind me and didn't see any blue flags as I came out of the pits," he explained.

However, Glock was given a similar penalty, relegating him to the back of the grid, after the team broke a seal on his gearbox to replace the differential, a breach of F1's technical rules.