It is no secret that the Mercedes Formula One team is operating in a different universe than the rest of the field, then it should come as no surprise that the two Silver Arrows finished first and second at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.
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Oh, oh-OH-oh oh OHH OHH. “Good job!” Hamilton grimaced as he shook hands with Rosberg afterwards. “All my best friends are Italian, I speak Italian and have a lot of connections with Italy and a lot of support here also, so it’s wonderful to see”, Rosberg added.
It was our most hard race of the last two years.
“This is the best crowd we get all year”, said Hamilton.
However, that pole position was lost in a matter of seconds when Hamilton got off to a disastrous start, with the Mercedes driver finding himself back in sixth position.
“It was all down to the start”, Rosberg said.
“I knew at an early stage that winning would not be possible but I could try. So it was all there”.
Of the seven races still to come this season, in 2015 Rosberg won three of them and the remaining four were split between Hamilton and Vettel. “It’s a great day for Mercedes and I am glad to be a part of it, but I don’t know if it’s such a great day for the fans that there wasn’t more of us racing”. Hamilton, however, was able to climb back up the grid, overtaking Ricciardo and Bottas. But, yeah, it’s hard to overtake here. Still, I can’t complain: two podiums in Monza two times at the start with Ferrari.
Hamilton said: “It was the start”. He emerged from his only stop behind both Ferrari drivers but was soon released back into second position when they made their final stops. Then I made a decision to go in the middle of them and was side-by-side with Nico but he did a good job braking for Turn 1.
Rosberg celebrated his victory.
Interestingly, Mercedes employed a single stop strategy for their cars, starting on soft tyres and finishing on mediums.
Teammate Nico Rosberg was the chief beneficiary storming past at the start and off into the distance to claim a 21st race victory of his career.
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, who finished third, revealed he knew the race was over when the Hamilton did one stop lesser than him.
Hamilton had been quicker throughout the weekend, and did make in-roads into Rosberg’s lead in the second half of the race, before backing off as he realised his faster pace would still not be enough to catch his title rival. The start was the decider of the race and after that I was just trying to get back into second to reduce the damage. “At the end the answer was really clear”.
Vettel filled the last spot on the podium while his team-mate Raikkonen secured fourth, just ahead of Ricciardo in fifth.
Daniel Ricciardo, who won the race in 2014, was sixth ahead of team mate Max Verstappen, for whom Sunday’s race is the closest the Dutchman has to a home event.
During the singing of the national anthem, fighter jets flew over the main straight, coloring the sky in the green, white and red of the Italian flag. The Brit started from pole but fell back nearly immediately, a good race strategy however ensured that the Mercs stayed on top. Torro Rosso driver Daniil Kvyat had to retire as well due to a technical issue, while Pascal Wehrlein was asked to stop the vehicle at Lap 28 and switch off, ending his run. The German will look to overhaul his British teammate two weeks from now, as the campaign resumes in Singapore. For the protection of AP and its licensors, content may not be copied, altered or redistributed in any form.
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