After the controversial end to the race just seven days ago, the paddock moves on to Monza with the championship finely balanced between the two title rivals Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa. Just two points separates them with five rounds of the World Championship to go. It really couldn’t get much closer.

The championship standings are subject to change following McLaren’s appeal to overturn the 25 second penalty Lewis was handed in Spa-Francorchamps.

After the mixed conditions in the Belgian Ardennes forest, this weekend’s trip to Italy should provide the drivers with substantially more dry track time.

The circuit measures 5.793km’s and the drivers will be pushing on the cars limiters on Monza’s long straights, spending large sections of the lap on full throttle. This makes Monza a very physically demanding circuit on both the cars and the drivers and it will be unlikely that all the cars will survive the grueling 53 laps.

Timo Glock managed to finish in the points at Spa but, like Lewis, was similarly penalized with a 25 second penalty forcing him down the order and out of the points, eventually finishing ninth. Timo will be looking to put that out of his mind this weekend as he hopes to continue with his impressive tally of results for the Toyota team in his first full season.

Jarno Trulli and Giancarlo Fisichella will be hoping that the crowd will inspire them to greater performances over the course of the weekend. Many drivers have claimed in the past that driving in front of a passionate home crowd can be like having an extra half a second in the car. After the troubles experienced in the first corner at Spa where they sustained damage to their cars through others accidents, both will be hoping to put on a display for the crowd and make it into Q3 in qualifying.

Giancarlo will be hoping to use his home track knowledge to help Force India gain their first championship point, while Jarno will look to strengthen his position in the championship further with a solid points finish.

Rubens Barrichello was advised by the team to retire from the race in Spa because of a gearbox problem which was putting extra strain on the engine. With the team now arriving at a highly demanding circuit for engines, Rubens will be hoping that there was no lasting damage done.

Two more driver’s hoping for a better weekend than they had in Spa will be Honda’s Jenson Button and Force India’s Adrian Sutil, Neither of whom had much chance to shine with the weather conditions over the closing laps putting pay to any chance either driver had of making a more prominent impact.

The race is due to start on Sunday at 14:00 (CET)