When he finally reemerged in second place, Hamilton was almost 15 seconds adrift of Rosberg-a gap that proved impossible to make up.
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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. Hamilton quickly dispatched Daniel Ricciardo for fifth, but Williams’s high top speed meant Valtteri Bottas took far longer.
The Ferraris were soon in, both for more super-softs, indicating that the scuderia were adopting a two-stop strategy while Mercedes, with Hamilton inheriting second place 15 seconds behind Rosberg, sticking to “Plan A”.
Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff suggested in April, following poor starts for Hamilton in Australia and Bahrain, and for Nico Rosberg also in Melbourne, that parent company Daimler was looking to optimise the hardware on the clutches. While Hamilton worked his way back up to second place a bobble in one of the chicanes late in the race ended any hopes of catching his teammate.
A football match between F1 drivers and ex-football players was held on the start-finish straight ahead of the Italian Grand Prix.
“So we’ll be trying to work and give as much information, learn as much as we can, if there’s any more, to try and make sure in the next six or seven races…”
“We knew Ferrari had the edge on us so fifth was our objective and we got it….”
Hamilton radioed his engineers to accept responsibility for the mistake and said post race: “Obviously it was lost at the start”. I just got lots of wheelspin. You saw it with Nico in Hockenheim and it’s happened to me quite a lot this year.
“I know from experience here, while everything can happen, the chances of the win decrease lap by lap, second by second”.
When the lights went out at Monza, Hamilton seemed to be moving in slow motion as Rosberg and four other cars streamed past him before the first corner.
McLaren meanwhile called their odd decision an “innovative three-driver strategy”, which we think is Ron Dennis speak for ‘move over Jenson, it’s time for Stoffel to have a go’.
The Force India of Sergio Perez ended up in eighth position while Felipe Massa, driving his last Italian GP after announcing he is quitting Formula One at the end of the current campaign, finished ninth, with the second Force India of Nico Hulkenberg.
Lewis Hamilton is still the leader in the 2016 Driver Standings with 250 points while Nico Rosberg is trailing behind with 248 points.
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We said yesterday, after Lewis Hamilton’s stunning pole position in Monza, that the race was his to lose. “Simple as that. I think we were slightly quicker when we were on a fresher set of tyres but not quick enough to really catch up”.
