Championship contender Lewis Hamilton overcame a poor start to win the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.
This was Hamilton’s sixth win this season and his 28th in Formula 1.
Just twenty-two points separate the Mercedes drivers and it shows how fortunes can ebb and flow between Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.
Starting on pole position, Lewis Hamilton was slow away from the grid.
This removed any chance of a repeat of the collision between the Silver Arrows, which handed Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo victory in the previous Grand Prix in Spa-Francorchamps.
Rosberg streaked away at the front as Hamilton fell behind the Williams of Felipe Massa and the fast-starting McLaren of Kevin Magnussen, who launched his way up from fifth on the grid to second place.
Hamilton struggled initially with his car becoming stuck in ‘RS mode’, but he soon got back to full speed and began to charge.
The 2008 world champion took advantage of Massa passing Magnussen at the second chicane on lap five to take third on the following run to the first Lesmo, before driving around the outside of Massa at the first chicane on lap ten.
By then Rosberg had already straight-lined the first chicane and Hamilton set about closing down his title rival further.
The Mercedes duo traded fastest laps initially, as Massa tried in vain to go with the leaders, but Hamilton then began to assert his speed advantage over Rosberg as the first half of the race wore on.
He closed to within 1.5 seconds of his Mercedes team-mate but could not leapfrog Rosberg in the pits as the leaders stopped on consecutive laps.
Hamilton was much quicker than Rosberg in the following laps on Pirelli’s harder tyre, and Rosberg gave the victory away to his team-mate by locking up his brakes and again straight-lining the first chicane on lap 29.
From that moment, Hamilton eased away to record his sixth victory of the season by just over three seconds.
Massa completed a lonely run to third place, thus recording his first podium finish since the 2013 Spanish Grand Prix.
Williams team-mate Valtteri Bottas was the pre-race favourite to take that final podium spot, having qualified third, but a terrible start dropped him outside the top ten on the opening lap.
The Finn spent most of the rest of the race slipstreaming his way back through the field, usually passing rivals before the entry to the first chicane, and eventually made his way back to fourth place.
Reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel lost fifth in the closing stages to Red Bull team-mate Daniel Ricciardo.
Vettel gambled on making an earlier pitstop than anyone else to gain track position, but could not make his hard tyres last well enough to hang on to the chequered flag.
Ricciardo benefitted the alternative strategy – running long in the first stint and stopping late – and made some impressively decisive passing moves as he recovered well from a poor start.
Vettel defended hard into the first chicane with five laps left to run, but was passed easily down the inside into the second chicane on tyres eight laps older than Ricciardo’s.
Magnussen finished seventh on track, but was penalised five seconds for forcing Bottas off the track at the first chicane during the Finn’s earlier slipstreaming charge, dropping McLaren’s rookie to tenth place.
Sergio Perez thus inherited seventh for Force India, after a close battle with the McLaren of Jenson Button, who ran sixth early on but lost track position to Perez at the stops.
The pair ran side-by-side through the Lesmos at one point, but Button could not force his way decisively back ahead of the Force India.
Kimi Raikkonen finished in ninth on a disappointing day for Ferrari at the Scuderia’s home race.
Team-mate Fernando Alonso started seventh, but recorded his first mechanical non-finish for five years after his F14 T suffered an ERS failure.
Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat should have inherited the final point for tenth when Magnussen’s penalty was applied, but the Russian frighteningly straight-lined the first chicane at high speed on the penultimate lap and trailed home P11, complaining of a brake problem.
So a great result for Team Brackley. Their seventh one-two finish this season. Just twenty-two points the difference between the Mercedes drivers.
It’s going to be an interesting fight for title honours with six races remaining.
Italian Grand Prix race results, after 53 laps:
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1h19m10.236s
2 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 3.175s
3 Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 25.026s
4 Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 40.786s
5 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 50.309s
6 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 59.965s
7 Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 1m02.518s
8 Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m03.063s
9 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m03.535s
10 Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes 1m06.171s
11 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso-Renault 1m11.184s
12 Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1m12.606s
13 Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Renault 1m13.093s
14 Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Renault 1 Lap
15 Adrian Sutil Sauber-Ferrari 1 Lap
16 Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1 Lap
17 Kamui Kobayashi Caterham-Renault 1 Lap
18 Jules Bianchi Marussia-Ferrari 1 Lap
19 Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari 2 Laps
20 Marcus Ericsson Caterham-Renault 2 Laps
Retirements:
Fernando Alonso Ferrari ERS issue
Max Chilton Marussia-Ferrari Spun off
Drivers’ championship:
1 Nico Rosberg 238
2 Lewis Hamilton 216
3 Daniel Ricciardo 166
4 Valtteri Bottas 122
5 Fernando Alonso 121
6 Sebastian Vettel 106
7 Jenson Button 72
8 Nico Hulkenberg 70
9 Felipe Massa 55
10 Kimi Raikkonen 41
11 Sergio Perez 39
12 Kevin Magnussen 38
13 Jean-Eric Vergne 11
14 Romain Grosjean 8
15 Daniil Kvyat 8
16 Jules Bianchi 2
17 Adrian Sutil 0
18 Marcus Ericsson 0
19 Pastor Maldonado 0
20 Esteban Gutierrez 0
21 Max Chilton 0
22 Kamui Kobayashi 0
Constructors’ championship:
1 Mercedes 454
2 Red Bull-Renault 272
3 Williams-Mercedes 177
4 Ferrari 162
5 McLaren-Mercedes 110
6 Force India-Mercedes 109
7 Toro Rosso-Renault 19
8 Lotus-Renault 8
9 Marussia-Ferrari 2
10 Sauber-Ferrari 0
11 Caterham-Renault 0
Next race: Singapore Grand Prix, Marina Bay. September 19-21.
Championship leader Nico Rosberg has admitted that he felt bad about making the mistakes into the first chicane which cost him the win at Monza. Autosport.com has the news story.
Nico Rosberg described the error that cost him Italian Grand Prix victory as “very bad”, having handed the race to Mercedes team-mate and Formula 1 title rival Lewis Hamilton.
F1 championship leader Rosberg opened up an early 3.6-second lead while Hamilton was recovering from a start system issue that had dropped him from pole to fourth.
But Rosberg twice outbraked himself at the Rettifilo chicane, with the second incident allowing Hamilton through to take the win.
“Lewis was just quick coming from behind so I needed to up my pace as a result and I just went into a mistake – it was very bad,” Rosberg said.
“And that lost me the lead in the end, so it’s definitely very disappointing from that point of view.
“Monza is one of the most difficult tracks for braking because of the low downforce and the highest speed of the year.
“It isn’t an excuse, it is what it is.
“It is one of the challenges here and unfortunately I got it wrong two times in the race.”
Rosberg’s second error happened shortly after he had held the lead in the race’s sole pitstop sequence.
Hamilton was closing on Rosberg either side of the stops, and he confirmed he had hoped he might unnerve his team-mate into a mistake.
“I was pushing to overtake him, that meant it opens up doors for everything,” said Hamilton.
The result allows Hamilton back to within 22 points of Rosberg in the championship.
“Of course I am disappointed right afterwards, but it’s still second, still a lot of points, so it is not a complete disaster,” said Rosberg.
“I need to look at reality, there is worse than that – and I only lost seven points to Lewis.”
He was also pleased that Mercedes was able to resume 1-2 finishes after the disastrous Spa collision, although Rosberg was still jeered on the podium by a section of the crowd.
“It is not nice, but what can I say?” said Rosberg of the fans’ reaction.
“I hope that with time they forgive and forget – that will be great. And I have apologised, I cannot do anything more than that.
“The team deserves to put all the recent stuff behind us and move forward.
“Spa is behind me, I put it behind me before the weekend, today’s race just came down to a mistake.”
Esteban Gutierrez has been handed a 20-second penalty following his incident with Formula 1 rival Romain Grosjean during the Italian Grand Prix.
The Sauber driver made contact with Grosjean’s Lotus at the Rettifilo chicane with two laps to go and had to limp back to the pits with a punctured rear right tyre.
The stewards found Gutierrez was to blame for the crash, but said they accepted Sauber’s explanation that the Mexican was suffering brake problems.
Gutierrez, who finished in 19th place, was still given a post-race drive-through penalty equivalent that drops him to 20th behind Caterham’s Marcus Ericsson.
“I’m not sure what happened with Esteban,” said Grosjean.
“He was overtaking me, but then under braking he moved over onto me.
“My front wing was where he was trying to be so we touched.”
Sauber team boss Monisha Kaltenborn was unimpressed with the incident.
“The contact which Esteban had with a competitor was unnecessary,” she said.
Source: Autosport.com
This was a poor race from Ferrari’s perspective with Fernando Alonso recording his first retirement of the season while Kimi Raikkonen finished the race in a distant ninth. Autosport.com has the news story.
Ferrari boss Marco Mattiacci says a previously unseen Energy Recovery System (ERS) problem was to blame for Fernando Alonso’s retirement from the Italian Grand Prix.
The issue was the first time that Alonso had retired from an F1 race with a mechanical failure since the 2010 Malaysian GP, and his first DNF of any kind since he crashed at the Sepang event in 2012.
“So far we have been good in terms of reliability but probably statistically we had to pay something to stats,” said Mattiacci.
“We had an issue with ERS – we’ve never had this issue before.
“It happens. Everybody was having reliability issues this year [except] Ferrari, so we joined a group.
“I don’t like this, it’s not any kind of comfort.”
Alonso was running only 10th when he retired, having qualified on row four for Ferrari’s home race.
“Obviously we are not happy with the results in front of our people,” said Alonso.
“To have a mechanical failure is never nice because the team is working very hard and when some parts cannot finish the race that is a hard moment for the boys.
“For the fans, we were not giving them any special result.
“Especially yesterday, we were not fast enough, and today we were struggling around position eight, seven, nine, whatever. This was not our goal.
“We have been in a difficult season but nevertheless from Thursday everyone was supporting us to the maximum here and we felt this love for our team in the good and bad moments.”
Kimi Raikkonen salvaged points for the team in the second Ferrari as he has finished ninth, having struggled to make progress from 11th on the grid.
“No problems, just the grip and speed were lacking,” he said.
“I could get close to other drivers, but I couldn’t follow them closely.
“It was very tricky trying to pass them and the straightline speed was lacking.”
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has rubbished talk of a conspiracy by his Formula 1 team to help Lewis Hamilton win the Italian Grand Prix rather than Nico Rosberg.
Hamilton was handed victory at Monza after race leader Rosberg lost time by using the escape road at the first chicane twice during the race.
Coming in the wake of the German being disciplined for crashing with Hamilton in the Belgian GP, his incidents in Italy prompted wild talk that deliberately sacrificing the win may have been a further sanction.
But Wolff was quick to dismiss such talk – saying it would have been virtually impossible to execute what happened on purpose.
“Only a paranoid mind could come up with such an idea,” explained Wolff about the conspiracy theories.
“If it had been our idea, it would have been bloody well done!
“There was lots of pressure on Nico because Lewis was so quick yesterday and you could see that today as well.”
Wolff said that there was no technical reason to explain why Rosberg went down the escape road twice in the race, although he did reveal that the German’s brake balance had been tweaked during the race.
“We tried to protect the rear [brakes], so we went forward with the brake balance. He hit the brake hard and missed the braking point.
“It was bizarre. But there isn’t any mechanical reason behind it.”
Rosberg himself also dismissed the conspiracy talk – and said there would be no grounds for his Mercedes bosses to demand that he sacrifice a victory for Hamilton.
“I’ve heard about that [the conspiracy theory], but what would be the reason for me to do something like that deliberately?” he said. “There is no possible reason.
“If you’re ordered by the team to do it then you would do it, but there is no reason why the team would ask me to change position, or something like that.”
Pole position man Hamilton had to fight back from fourth place in the race, after a poor start dropped him down the order.
Wolff revealed that the problem had been caused by an electronic issue that meant the clutch did not behave properly.
“We had an electronic problem which we had on the warm up lap and also on the start,” he said.
“We need to find out what it was exactly. But we got it wrong.
“So Lewis didn’t have an optimum start. In the procedure there is lots of clutch calibration and that was not perfect, so the start was not good.”
Source: Autosport.com
Despite racing through the field to finish a creditable fourth, the Williams team will investigate on why Valtteri Bottas made a poor start. Autosport.com has the details.
The Williams Formula 1 team is not sure whether Valtteri Bottas’s poor Italian Grand Prix start was caused by a clutch issue or just low grip combined with cold tyres.
Bottas dropped from third on the grid to 11th at the end of lap one after a poor getaway and early struggles with wheelspin.
Although the team initially believed that clutch problems were to blame, performance chief Rob Smedley said there was no firm answer yet.
“We’re looking into it,” he said. “At the moment it’s not 100 per cent clear.
“Initially we thought it was a clutch problem, but then looking at the clutch delivery and the torque delivery on both cars they seem to have worked OK.
“He just seemed to have an awful lot of wheelspin.
“I think the grip was low and he couldn’t feel a peak of grip and getting the tyres up to temperature and neither could Felipe [Massa].
“We’ll just have to look at all the aspects of it and how Felipe was able to start better.
“Felipe himself said the grip was low and that he was having to manage it himself.
“We’ll look at all the aspects: how they approach the starts and how they might be able to improve.”
Bottas said his impression when the lights went out was that the clutch delivery was too aggressive, which gave him too much wheelspin.
“Compared to the grip I had available in the tyres I think we were too aggressive with the clutch,” he said.
“The start for the formation lap, where we always do the final checks, was a bit compromised because Lewis [Hamilton] had a slow getaway – and that maybe hurt a little bit. But definitely the tyres were not in the optimum window.
“I had a poor start but the same thing continued after Turn 2 [Rettifilo exit]. It was just spinning until fifth gear.”
As for the incident involving Bottas and Magnussen, the Williams driver admitted he was unsure over the post-race penalty that affected his rival. Autosport.com has the news story.
Valtteri Bottas is unsure whether Formula 1 rival Kevin Magnussen deserved to be penalised for his defensive driving during their Italian Grand Prix battle.
McLaren driver Magnussen was handed a five-second penalty for forcing Bottas to cut the second part of the first chicane as they fought over fifth place on the 31st lap of Sunday’s Monza F1 race.
Finnish racer Bottas later passed Magnussen and went on to finish fourth for Williams, while the Dane crossed the line seventh but fell to 10th after the race stewards applied the penalty.
Bottas told reporters after the race that Magnussen’s driving was “on the limit” of what is acceptable.
“It’s difficult to say if it was worth a penalty,” Bottas said.
“For me there was nowhere else to go – I had to cut the chicane.
“I didn’t have the chance to overtake even though we were already side by side.
“It’s a tough one. In the end it didn’t change anything for me, even though he got a penalty, because I still had to overtake him, so for me it didn’t really matter.”
Nevertheless Bottas felt his rival could have handled the moment differently.
When asked by AUTOSPORT what he would have done in Magnussen’s position, Bottas replied: “There are two ways if you want to keep the position: do what he did or you carry a bit more speed but you leave a car’s width inside and then you can still get a good exit and stay ahead.”
However, Williams performance chief Rob Smedley reckoned Magnussen’s five-second penalty was appropriate.
“Whether or not Magnussen braked a little deep in there to try to keep the corner and found himself too deep at the apex of Turn 1 [Rettifilo], I don’t know,” Smedley said.
“Valtteri had to put his car off the track in order to avoid having an accident, so I think a five-second penalty was justified.”
Magnussen was also penalised during the previous race in Belgium, after forcing Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari off the track during a late dice.
The Dane admitted he was frustrated to receive a second penalty in as many races, but said he would try to learn from the incident.
“I don’t want to comment because it doesn’t matter what I think – those are the rules,” Magnussen said.
“If they [the stewards] give me the penalty it means that I broke the rules. Simple as that.
“It’s getting better: last time it was 20 seconds; this time is five.
“It’s getting a bit frustrating to get these penalties, but I just have to analyse it and see what I can learn.”
McLaren racing director Eric Boullier accepted the penalty but intimated that it was harsh.
“In our view he was unfortunate to be penalised for what we saw as a legitimate defence,” he said. “But the stewards’ decision is final.”
Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso believed fifth was possible at the Italian Grand Prix. Unfortunately, his car suffered ERS failure which meant the double world champion recorded his first retirement of the season. Autosport.com has the details.
Fernando Alonso reckons he could have fought Daniel Ricciardo’s Red Bull for fifth place at the Italian Grand Prix, had his Ferrari not suffered ERS failure.
Alonso ran seventh in the early stages of Sunday’s Formula 1 race at Monza, but fell to ninth after being passed by the recovering Williams of Valtteri Bottas and getting jumped by the Force India of Sergio Perez in the pits.
Alonso was forced to retire his Ferrari on lap 29 of 53, but told reporters after the race that he had been saving his tyres to attack in the closing stages, in a similar fashion to the way Ricciardo charged through the lower part of the top 10 during the second half of the race.
“It was possible to be fifth to be honest because I think we were quicker than Ricciardo and we were in front of him in that [early] part of the race,” Alonso said.
“With the first stint we were very competitive, but unfortunately we could not overtake because when four cars are in a group the last three cars all open DRS.
“When we pitted we found ourselves behind the train of cars with no possibility of overtaking.
“Thirty laps from the end we tried to change a little bit the approach and I backed off from the cars in front, and then at that point started having the engine problem.
“[Tyre saving] could work quite well as it did for Ricciardo, so I’m still thinking it was possible to at least try to attack at the end, with a little bit more pace, better tyres. Probably it was more possible than [at the beginning].”
Alonso’s team-mate Kimi Raikkonen had a quiet race to ninth after failing to qualify inside the top 10 at Monza.
The Finn described Ferrari’s position at its home race as “complicated”.
“The tyres were difficult at one point with the handling,” Raikkonen said.
“I caught up with the others, but it was difficult for us to overtake.
“It was a complicated situation at a circuit like this for us.
“The balance was there, but we were lacking overall grip and speed.”
Nico Rosberg felt sore enough at losing Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix without then having to face conspiracy theories suggesting he had done it deliberately.
The Mercedes driver, who finished second after making a mistake at the first chicane while under pressure from winning team mate Lewis Hamilton, could scarcely believe anyone would suggest such a thing.
“I’ve heard about that, but what would be the reason for me to do something like that deliberately?,” asked the German, who saw his lead cut to 22 points with six races remaining.
“There is no possible reason. There is no reason why the team would ask me to change position, or something like that.
“The only thing in people’s minds could be Spa, but Spa was a mistake which I’ve apologised for,” added the German, who hit the back of Hamilton’s car on the second lap of the Belgian Grand Prix two weeks ago.
Hamilton said after that race that Rosberg had “done it on purpose” but he was certainly not accusing him of any such intent in Italy.
Rosberg accepted blame for the Spa incident, which led to Hamilton’s race retirement, and was handed an unspecified punishment from his angry team who reminded their drivers they could race each other but must not make contact on the track.
If there were some wondering whether a restitution of points might form part of that penalty, an idea that was discussed and swiftly dismissed by some paddock pundits post-race, the driver and team ridiculed the very thought.
“It’s not something where I have to give back something. Mistakes, errors happen, and that’s the way it is, (I make) an apology and on we go,” said Rosberg, who braked late and continued straight on at the chicane.
He then had to slow and zig-zag to get back on track.
“It’s not like we now start shuffling and things like that, so there is no reason why I would do something like that on purpose,” added Rosberg.
Mercedes motorsport head Toto Wolff found the idea even more mind-boggling after being asked by BBC pundit and former team owner Eddie Jordan.
“I said to Eddie that only a paranoid mind could come up with such an idea,” he said.
“I think there was lots of pressure on Nico because Lewis was so quick yesterday and you could see that today as well,” he added, explaining also that Rosberg had to miss the chicane because the alternative was to damage the tyres.
That would have entailed another pitstop and lost time.
Television images also showed Wolff smiling apparently as Hamilton took the lead after Rosberg’s error, providing more fuel for the conspiracy theorists, but he dismissed any suggestion the two things were linked.
“Whoever picks that up and tries to interpret anything in such a picture must be out of his mind,” said the Austrian. “First of all, it’s not live.
“It wasn’t synchronised with the picture.”
Wolff explained that he had smiled when his two drivers were closing up, with Hamilton chasing down Rosberg, out of a sense of ‘here we go again’ and anticipation of sparks to come. The footage was then spliced into the live action later.
Hamilton had started from pole position on Sunday, with Rosberg second, but fell to fourth at the start after a problem with his car’s race start settings.
Source: Reuters