Barrichello leads Brawn 1-2 at Monza

Rubens Barrichello has won a dramatic Italian Grand Prix which saw World Champion Lewis Hamilton lose control and crash his McLaren on the final lap of the race. As the Englishman lost third place, Barrichello led home team-mate Jenson Button with Kimi Räikkönen completing the podium for Ferrari.

Sunday's grid was already an interesting one considering that the top three drivers were running with different race strategies to those behind. World Champion Hamilton had achieved his second pole position of the season although Adrian Sutil narrowly missed out due to a mistake in qualifying on Saturday.Heavy rain dampened the rapid and legendary Monza circuit overnight although blue skies and warm temperatures graced the former Royal park venue on Sunday, with the track surface reaching highs of some 40°C before the race had even begun.

Mark Webber and Red Bull's championship chances took a major knock on the first lap as the Australian got together with Robert Kubica's BMW, unintentionally forcing the pole onto the grass on the run to the Rettifilo. It was a second touch between the pairing at the Variante della Roggia's Turn 5, however, which saw Webber spin off into retirement and Kubica forced to pit under the black and orange flag; the Pole's race ended soon after with a suspected oil leak.

Hamilton led away cleanly at the front although a bad start for Heikki Kovalainen - who, fuel-corrected, was on pole position and favourite for the win - saw the Finn sink to the bottom of the top eight. Raikkonen kept second with Sutil and the Brawns rounding out the top five. With the top three needing to pit once more than the white cars, however, both Barrichello and Button were aware that gaps needed to be maintained as Hamilton set a string of seven fastest laps consecutively at the start of the race.With Sutil unable to pass the KERS-shod Raikkonen Ferrari, the order in the two groups of cars remained the same for almost all of the afternoon although Brawn was able to control proceedings after the first round of stops for the leaders. Hamilton inherited the lead as Button, followed by the quicker Barrichello, came in.

Following Hamilton's final pit-stop, the World Champion elected to run on the harder, Medium compound tyres for the second time although the McLaren was not capable of running far enough into the race to rejoin ahead of the Brackley cars. As Barrichello led the final sprint to the flag from team-mate Button, Hamilton continued to lower the gap to his compatriot to as low as one and a half seconds as Raikkonen held Sutil as bay by only half a second for fourth and fifth.Sutil's realistic chance of ceasing the Ferrari's position was gone at his second and final stop as, when pitting at the same time as the 2007 Champion, the German overshot his pit box to take down several mechanics as well as losing his right-hand wing mirror as a result.