Fellow teammate Lewis Hamilton suffered a poor start at the beginning of the race, dropping from first to fifth. Rosberg was never threatened crossing taking the checkered flag 15.07 seconds ahead of Hamilton.
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Hamilton had led Rosberg by 19 points before the previous grand prix at Spa but lost 10 points there after starting from the back of the grid; here, he lost another seven.
“So of course I knew at quite an early stage that winning the race was not going to be possible but I tried”.
The Mercedes man also looked on course for the 50th grand prix victory of his career after taking pole from team-mate Nico Rosberg by nearly half a second.
Much to the delight of the red clad throngs Sebastian Vettel and his Ferrari were the best of the rest finishing third and putting a Ferrari driver on the podium to cheered by the thousands of Italian race fans who mobbed the track in front of the podium stand. Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo finished 5th, Valtteri Bottas of Williams 6th, Red Bull “s Max Verstappen 7th”. With Mercedes-Benz’s one-stop strategy, Vettel and Raikkonen played catchup with Hamilton and Rosberg as Ferrari opted for a two-stop strategy.
The race looked set to be a straight fight between the Mercedes teammates and title rivals, but a slow getaway by Hamilton at the start meant Rosberg led into Turn 1.
Pole-sitter Hamilton, 31, was bidding to become the first driver since the great Juan Manuel Fangio in the 1950s to claim a hat-trick of consecutive victories at the so-called Temple of Speed. We changed the rules previous year (going from a double to a single clutch start) and this is why I don’t want to go there.
However, after the race, the World Championship leader – who is a 1/4 favourite for the Drivers’ Championship title – said that his initial communication with the team had not been accurate.
“I felt good on qualifying pace, it’s just that Lewis had his best day of the year and when he has his best day of the year it is hard to beat him”, he explained.
“I don’t know what happened, l did everything as normal”. “It is my best approach, so why would I change it?”
“You guys are unbelievable and it makes it phenomenal to be up here”.
Compounding Hamilton’s frustration, the world champion had been in superlative form all weekend, out-qualifying Rosberg by half a second at a circuit where 70 per cent of a lap is spent at full throttle.
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Despite having shouldered the responsibility for his poor start, Hamilton admitted he only did so because he wanted to ease any concerns his team in the garage may have been having as a result. To be honest, after I saw the times already in Q1 and in Q2 on a different compound, I knew it would be hard, but you never know… Indeed McLaren chairman Ron Dennis, who flanked Button as he made the announcement from inside the team’s motorhome on Saturday night, was keen to stress Button’s latest move should not be viewed as his retirement.
