And it looked like the defending champion would win a third consecutive title in Monza when he took pole, ahead of Rosberg.
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Nico Rosberg claimed a comfortable second victory in as many weeks after leading Lewis Hamilton across the line at the Italian Grand Prix.
Rosberg’s winning margin over Hamilton was 15 seconds, with Vettel 20 seconds behind and Raikkonen 27 seconds back.
But instead of passing another milestone in his remarkable career, Hamilton found himself passed by five cars after an terrible getaway that gifted a precious win to Rosberg.
Meanwhile, Ferrari narrowed the second place points gap withRed Bull Racing in the Constructors’ Championship to 11 points. The one person the Merc drivers have trouble passing if they fall behind is their team-mate.
Mercedes suffered its worst weekend of past year around the Marina Bay street circuit as Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton could only qualify on the third row of the grid, with the former 1.5s behind polesitter in Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel.
The Monza drive was the first time that Nico Rosberg won at this circuit.
With this win, Rosberg is now just two points behind his team-mate and arch rival Lewis Hamilton in the Drivers’ Championship and ahead on overall tally of wins this season with seven wins over Hamilton’s six.
“Obviously it was lost at the start”, Hamilton told reporters. “We raced side by side through turn one and then he ran me off the road in turn two”. On the contrary, Hamilton started on pole but had a disastrous start and was sixth by the first corner.
Back in April, executive director Toto Wolff said the team was working to improve their clutches, per Motorsport.com’s Jonathan Noble.
“We’re still caught out by random variation from one race to another”, Hamilton said.
Ironically, Hamilton and Mercedes’ struggles have been good for F1 fans.
“We can not go there with too much confidence because we were miles off a year ago – 1.8 seconds – and that is huge, so it is our most hard race and it will be a challenging weekend”, Rosberg added.
“If you start to blame, this is where you start going downhill because people try to protect themselves and (then we) have a conservative system in place, rather than putting the best development on the auto”. The Brit dropped from pole position down to sixth place off the line, but was able to use the superior speed of the Mercedes to claw his way back up to second.
OK, it’s not a Gilles Villeneuve-Rene Arnoux duel to the finish, but it’s something! He is driving the best vehicle, leading the title chase with just seven grands prix remaining and his 55-place penalty at the Belgian Grand Prix ensures he will have enough engine parts for the rest of the year.
And that was pretty much how it stayed, with Rosberg in front and in charge, and Hamilton without enough to challenge Rosberg’s lead – or even get properly close.
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Don’t miss the F1 Report for the analysis of the Italian GP.
