during the Formula One Grand Prix of Italy at Autodromo di Monza on September 3, 2017 in Monza, Italy.

Sebastian Vettel finished the Scuderia's home race in third place at the Monza circuit and while it wasn't the ideal result he was still able to salute the tifosi from the podium.

After the difficulties on Saturday, Seb had hoped for a stronger race in the dry, however due to the dominating performance put in by both Mercedes driers, the German now finds himself three points behind Lewis Hamilton in the Drivers' Championship.

With qualifying run entirely in the wet, Seb had a free choice of dry tyre for the start so he lined up in sixth place on the grid shod with the Supersofts.

It was an aggressive choice, actually adopted by all those at the front end, with the aim of immediately going on the attack.

He worked his way past his teammate, and two other drivers in front of him to get into P3, however in the final 10 laps, Sebastian was forced to keep an eye on his former team-mate, Daniel Ricciardo, who was on a charge after a late pitstop and closing the gap very quickly.

To hold off the charge, Seb responded with his best lap, upping the pace in the closing stages. He defended in determined fashion all the way to the flag and was clearly proud to stand on the podium, having achieved the minimum goal the team had set itself on the most difficult weekend of the year.

“Today we were not as quick as the Mercedes, but considering where we started from, we got the best result in the race. It was not ideal, but we are working very hard on what we want to achieve,” he said after the race. “The next tracks should be ok for us. We know we have to work on ourselves and where. I was happy at being back here with all our supporters, I got a lot of adrenalin from being on that podium.”

“Of course, I wanted to win, but I am confident we are on the right way. It was not a great day for us, but at the same time it was brilliant to feel all the passion. Leading the Championship is not important as much as winning the Championship, it's where you are at the last race that counts. It is clear where we want to go, what we want to achieve.”