ITALIAN GP – Rosberg sails to victory following a bad start by Hamilton, as Ferrari finish third
Nico Rosberg took advantage of a slow start by Lewis Hamilton to lead from the start to take victory at the Italian Grand Prix. Hamilton who started from pole failed to hook his start up losing five places at the start while Rosberg pulled away from the two Ferrari’s.
Ferrari put in a strong performance in with a two stop strategy to finish third with Sebastian Vettel gaining there first podium since the European Grand Prix in June.
Rosberg’s victory means that the gap to Hamilton now is two points in the drivers’ championship. The Mercedes drivers looked very strong with both cars being well ahead of the Ferrari’s.
Hamilton had lost five places following his bad start and knew he would need some brilliant overtakes if he wanted any chance of taking victory. This would not be difficult because Mercedes power has looked strong all weekend. He soon made easy work of the Williams of Valtteri Bottas with the Mercedes aero package proving to be better.
Rosberg said on told Channel 4’s Eddie Jordan on the podium “”The race is on. It’s always going to be a great battle and I look forward to what is to come.”
Hamilton said: “It was the start. I knew my engineers would be worried and nervous of how the start went. I don’t really know what happened. I will try to understand later. It’s hard to overtake here. Live to fight another day.”
Like Mercedes Ferrari has been strong all weekend and they looked certain to be the best of the rest. There podium delighted the Tosfi who cheered like mad when Vettel walked over the bridge to the podium.
Daniel Ricciardo finished fifth fastest ahead of the Williams of Valtteri Bottas following late moves in the race by Ricciardo. The Australian dived down the inside late at turn one to put Bottas in between himself and his team-mate Max Verstappen.
Ricciardo told Sky Sports “I thought ‘just have a go’. I was behind Valtteri for a long part of the race, even though I was far back I was going to have a go.”
Romain Grosjean finished eleventh fastest and a lap down ahead of the McLaren of Jenson Button. While his team-mate Esteban Gutiérrez failed to build on Haas’s brilliant qualifying finishing thirteenth. Haas were likely to struggle in the race because of dirty air and poor downforce.
The only incident and retirements in the race was Renault’s Jolyon Palmer and Sabuer’s Felipe Nasr. Nasr appeared to squeeze Palmer on the exit of turn two when the pair made contact, with him being given a ten second penalty by the stewards.
In order to pit and serve a five-second penalty for the incident so it did not carry over to the next race Singapore.
Daniil Kyvat had another difficult race with the Russian being forced to retire.
RELATED
- Italian GP – Qualifying Result
- ITALIAN GP – Hamilton Takes Pole By Half A Second From Rosberg
- NOTEBOOK – Friday Italy
- ITALIAN GP – Hamilton fastest in second practice as Mercedes look to have the edge on Ferrari
- ITALIAN GP – Rosberg fastest ahead of Hamilton with Ferrari looking strong
- Preview – Italian Grand Prix
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