Michael Schumacher suffered the highs and lows of motorsport life in one afternoon at Monza as, having racked up his 90th race win in front of the adoring
tifosi at Monza, he announced that the time had come to bow out of
Formula One.
Even after the stewards had intervened to increase the gap between Schumacher and title rival
Fernando Alonso at the start, penalising the Spaniard for allegedly blocking
Ferrari's
Felipe Massa during qualifying, the afternoon still revolved around the pair, despite the fact that they never ran together on track during the 53 laps.
At the front, Schumacher duelled for victory with
McLaren's
Kimi Raikkonen - the man widely expected to fill the German's seat at Ferrari next season - while, further back, Alonso had to battle his way through traffic and appeared poised to limit his losses with a podium place - only for his engine to expire in front of his rival's fans.
While Raikkonen got the better start to lead into the first chicane, Schumacher almost lost out to the fast-starting
Nick Heidfeld, the
BMW Sauber driver ahead into the corner, but backing off enough to allow Schumacher back through. While Heidfeld subsequently fell back through the order on the opening laps, however, new team-mate
Robert Kubica was going the opposite way. Taking advantage of the German's loss of momentum, he ended the lap in third place, having started sixth, and would run at the head of the chasing pack almost throughout.
Raikkonen continued to lead Schumacher to the first round of pit-stops, the gap between them fluctuating around a second or two, but the die was cast when McLaren called its man in first. Schumacher had a lap more to make good his advantage and, when both cars were back on track, it was the Ferrari which was ahead. From thee, Schumacher wasn't headed, although Raikkonen kept him honest through the second round of stops, before easing back at the end to ensure he took second place.
