Four days after escaping a points deduction for manipulating the result of July's German Grand Prix, Ferrari are back in favour and back in with a sniff of the drivers' title.
Whether that sniff becomes something more tangible will depend upon Fernando Alonso's ability to convert his pole – Ferrari's first in nearly two years – into a race win this afternoon.
Lining up alongside the Spaniard will be McLaren's Jenson Button, another driver licking his lips at the prospect of eating into Lewis Hamilton's championship lead after claiming his first front row since Turkey last year.
Hamilton could only qualify fifth fastest, over half a second down on his team-mate, after a gamble on his car's set-up backfired badly.
It is all rather technical but essentially it boils down to Hamilton's decision to go with a low-downforce rear wing, as opposed to Button's combination of a higher downforce wing running in conjunction with McLaren's fabled F-Duct, the aerodynamic device which helps to reduce drag.
So where Button could use the extra downforce through Monza's tight chicanes while achieving similar top-speeds courtesy of his F-Duct on the straights, Hamilton was "sliding" all over the place.
"It [not using the F-duct] potentially had a quite a big impact on the end result in qualifying and I'm disappointed with fifth place," Hamilton admitted.
"The car was sliding everywhere. It was the wrong choice, a bit of a mistake, but we'll push on tomorrow.
I don't think we have an advantage. Hopefully we should be quite fast on the straights compared to the others, but the guys [with more downforce] can go faster through the corners so it's a real balance.The worry for Hamilton is that Button expects his advantage to be even more exaggerated in race trim, especially when loaded up with 160kgs worth of fuel.
"We weren't sure which approach to take in terms of downforce but our side [of the McLaren garage] made the right decision to run the F-duct," he said. "I'm happy to be second. It's the first time on the front row this season so it's a step forward.
"But for me the real benefit of our car at the moment is the long run pace. It's going to be an interesting race with the cars running such different downforce levels.
"It will add something to the spectacle."
As happy as he was, Button is well aware that he must now capitalise on this unexpected gift and go for the jugular this afternoon.
"A podium would be great but we need to go for a victory," he said.
It turned around very quickly at the last race in Spa for Fernando, Sebastian and myself [when all three failed to score any points]. A lot of guys wrote us off then but there are still five or six guys fighting for the championship and I'm right in there."I am a little bit surprised that Lewis was that far behind because he has been very quick all weekend but with the low-downforce setting you have to tip-toe through the corners.
"I don't know what Lewis thinks about it now but before qualifying he was happy about it."
The big loser of the day was undoubtedly Sebastian Vettel who could only qualify sixth fastest, two places behind his Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber. The Australian was relieved to have done even that well.
"The gap is probably a bit bigger than we expected," said Webber, who added that he was hoping for a "boring" race. "That would be nice. Fifty-three laps and hopefully sitting here tomorrow night with you guys with some good points.
On Thursday night we would probably have signed up for losing nothing, give or take a point or two here or there. But Fernando was very strong. Very, very quick.Championship leader Hamilton back in fifth and with the wrong set-up? Second-placed Webber up for a boring race from fourth? It all adds up to a huge opportunity for the chasing pack. Button and Alonso are primed and ready.
