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.
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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 first victory at the historic circuit outside Milan was his seventh of the season, one more than Hamilton, and 21st of his career as well as second in a row after Belgium last weekend. On the contrary, Hamilton started on pole but had a disastrous start and was sixth by the first corner.
Eric Boullier, the racing director at McLaren, told Reuters: “We are supplying anti-mosquito products and long-sleeved outfits and we have sent a brief to everybody about how to take care and all the why, what and how about it”.
It initially appeared that driver error was the cause, with Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff telling the BBC that: “Lewis came on the radio and said it was his mistake and we have to analyse it”.
For Hamilton, running on soft tyres, the race became a strategy exercise.
But a woeful getaway saw the British driver fall to sixth by turn one, and while a one-stop strategy enabled him to leapfrog the Ferrari duo of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen to finish second, it was Rosberg who cruised to the chequered flag with Vettel completing the podium. “I just got lots of wheelspin, a bit like Nico’s start in Hockenheim”.
“Lewis did one stop less, so obviously it was clear after our second stop he would be ahead of us – and I think the problem was that he was too far ahead of us”, Vettel noted. “It should have been a bigger race between Ferrari and us this weekend but hopefully in the future it will be”.
‘In this particular case, it is a combination of things so that is why I don’t want to go there. “So I just don’t think about it and enjoy winning the races”.
F1 is preparing to confront the challenges posed by the mosquito-borne Zika virus in the next two races in Singapore (18 September) and Malaysia (2 October).
“I was pretty close to Bottas in the middle of the race and knew I could race hard from that position”.
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Force India’s Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg took eighth and tenth, with the Williams of Felipe Massa sandwiched in between in ninth. Fernando Alonso was a lowly 14th. Daniil Kvyat was the other non-finisher, the Russian pulling his Toro Rosso into the pits to retire after 36 laps. Pascal Wehrlein pulled over to retire eight laps earlier.
