By Ian Lockwood
September 13 2010

A dogged performance by Mark in the Italian Grand Prix resulted in him re-taking the lead of the drivers’ world championship. He entered the race, which was the final European round of the year, with a three-point deficit to Lewis Hamilton and emerged with a five-point lead.

“It was good to get some points,” says Mark, “but I came away feeling a little frustrated with sixth place because I lost too much time behind the Williams of Nico Hulkenberg. He seemed to have two lines during the race; one of them was on the circuit and the other was off it. At one stage, he was straight-lining the chicanes every other lap, but the stewards decided not to penalise him.”

The time lost behind Hulkenberg cost Mark a couple of positions during the pitstop sequence, after he started the race fourth. It was Mark’s worst grid position since the season-opener in Bahrain, but he did a good job in difficult circumstances to grab a place on the second row.

“My build-up to qualifying didn’t go smoothly,” says Mark. “I missed two practice sessions – one on Friday and another on Saturday morning – due to technical problems and I hadn’t even tried the option tyre prior to the start of qualifying. I put together a good lap in Q3 and, all things considered, I was pleased to take fourth at this, our least competitive track of the year.”

At the start of the race, Mark made a better getaway than he did at Spa-Francorchamps two weeks ago, but he got too much wheelspin on the dirty side of the grid and lost several places on the run to the first corner. He ended the opening lap in ninth place, before fighting back with great tenacity.

“I had a good scrap with Michael [Schumacher] in the early laps,” says Mark. “I got past him on lap six and then my team-mate Sebastian Vettel on lap 20, but that was as far as I got for quite a while because I got stuck behind Hulkenberg.

“He was all over the place, but he was very difficult to pass because his Williams was quick in a straight line. We were convinced that he’d get a penalty for bolting the chicane too many times, and I understand that he got a warning from Charlie [Whiting, FIA race director], but he was never asked to relinquish his position.”

Mark hoped to pass Hulkenberg in the pits, but a great pitstop by the Red Bull mechanics wasn’t quite enough to leaqfrog the German rookie. He had to pass him on the racetrack.

“I had to be quite aggressive to pass him,” says Mark, “but every world championship point was important because I knew Lewis had crashed out of the race. As soon as I was in clean air, I was able to lap much faster and I started to gain on Nico Rosberg in fifth, but I ran out of laps.”