It seemed like Lewis Hamilton would be registering yet another victory at Monza today, but a faltering start on the opening lap ensured that Nico Rosberg dominated the race securing the pole position in the Italian Grand Prix.
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The victory also prevented Hamilton completing a hat-trick of Italian wins, a feat achieved only by Juan Manuel Fangio in the 1950s.
A 19-point lead looked nice and comfortable for Hamilton as the season returned, but two wins in two races for Rosberg has brought the smile back onto the German’s face, with the champion now looking the anxious man.
Behind them, Ricciardo’s team-mate Max Verstappen was also on a charge and he grabbed seventh from Force India’s Sergio Perez with five laps to go. That put him in position to become the first driver since 1955, to win this race three times in a row. “You’ve seen it with Nico in Hockenheim and it’s bitten me quite a lot this year”.
But there was to be no catching Rosberg, who took the chequered flag 15 seconds ahead of his team-mate and over 20 in front of Vettel.
Hamilton actually predicted as much when the new rules were announced, telling the official F1 website: “There is such a differential between the first [formation lap] and the real start, there will be a lot of people getting bad starts”.
Hamilton’s initial reaction saw him depart cleanly only to lose momentum as Vettel, from third, passed him and Rosberg took the lead. This meant that his race was that of a recovery, where he had to overtake a number of drivers to climb back to second position and overtake the Ferraris, who were supported by the home crowd.
“We never stop improving and learning, but this year has been a hard year for us with our clutch”, said the 31-year-old Briton in the wake of Sunday s race.
“I don’t agree that it is more down to the driver I think it is the same as it was before we just have a relatively inconsistent clutch and it is hard”.
There is no shame in fluffing a start but, unfortunately for Hamilton, this is a recurrence of a problem which blighted some of his early-season races. “Second was the best I could do after the start I got”.
The world champion dropped to sixth at the first corner and despite fighting back to second and closing on Rosberg he could not challenge for the win.
“I don’t know what happened, I did everything as normal”, said Hamilton, who enjoyed a 19-point championship lead before the pre-summer break.
“The start was a big battle and l won that, which was cool”, said Rosberg.
Rosberg insists that his approach to the championship has not changed. After several laps of holding back to look after his tyres Hamilton got by on lap 10. “Second was the best l could do after the start l got”.
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“The reason we changed the rules past year was to give more responsbility to the driver and make it more variable”.
