Italian GP: race results and notes

Michael Schumacher drove faultlessly to secure his 90th Grand Prix victory from Kimi Raikkonen and BMW's Robert Kubica.

Schumacher also confirmed he is to retire at the end of this season.

Panasonic Toyota Racing will leave Monza with two points courtesy of Jarno Trulli's strong drive at today's Italian Grand Prix. On a sunny day at the circuit situated near the city of Milan, temperatures again approached 30 degrees Celsius. Jarno and team-mate Ralf Schumacher faced a hard day's work from their respective grid positions of 11th and 13th.

Ralf was less fortunate, spending much of the day in traffic and settling for 15th. Toyota now heads to the British circuit of Silverstone for testing this week in preparation for the last three races of the season in China, Japan and Brazil.

Ralf Schumacher: "We were always going to face a difficult afternoon today starting from so far down the grid and that was the way it proved. I have struggled for balance throughout the weekend and that continued throughout the race. I found myself in traffic and we just didn't have enough speed to overtake down the straights. So all in all it's been a difficult event for me. Luckily Jarno scored a couple of points so well done to him."

"We have had a fast car in the last few races and we expect to improve our performance at the coming races. Of course I would also like to mention Michael's decision to retire. I am sure he has thought long and hard about his decision and I respect it. I've enjoyed racing with him and I wish him all the best both for the championship and for the future."

Tsutomu Tomita - Team Principal:

"We came here expecting unsettled weather but in the end all three days have been fine. We also expected more from this weekend but we struggled with the performance of the car on Friday and Saturday. It was a pity that we missed out on Q3 and it meant today was always going to be hard work. But today was much better and our pace was closer to what we expected from the whole weekend."

"Ralf spent most of the race in traffic so it is difficult to judge what he could have achieved but he still brought the car home. Our tyres were consistent and reasonably fast so we have achieved the best we could have managed today. The car configuration we will use at the last three races of the year will be different and we are confident that we will be able to improve our level of performance. We will head to Shanghai with a target of challenging the top cars again."

Race results

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time	Points
1	M. Schumacher	Ferrari	no time	10
2	K. Räikkönen	McLaren	+ 8.000	8
3	R. Kubica	BMW	+ 26.400	6
4	G. Fisichella	Renault	+ 32.000	5
5	J. Button	Honda	+ 32.600	4
6	R. Barrichello	Honda	+ 42.400	3
7	J. Trulli	Toyota	+ 44.600	2
8	N. Heidfeld	BMW	+ 45.300	1
9	F. Massa	Ferrari	+ 45.900	0
10	M. Webber	Williams	+ 1:12.600	0
11	C. Klien	Red Bull	+ 1 laps	0
12	D. Coulthard	Red Bull	+ 1 laps	0
13	S. Speed	Scuderia Toro Rosso	+ 1 laps	0
14	V. Liuzzi	Scuderia Toro Rosso	+ 1 laps	0
15	R. Schumacher	Toyota	+ 1 laps	0
16	T. Sato	Super Aguri	+ 2 laps	0
17	C. Albers	Midland F1	+ 2 laps	0
Did not finish
18	T. Monteiro	Midland F1	+ 9 laps	0
19	F. Alonso	Renault	+ 10 laps	0
20	P. de la Rosa	McLaren	+ 33 laps	0
21	S. Yamamoto	Super Aguri	+ 35 laps	0
22	P. de la Rosa	McLaren	+ 44 laps	0