Nico Rosberg reduced the gap in the Formula One Championship to just two points after winning the Italian Grand Prix by over 15 seconds.
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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.
Hamilton threw away what had looked set to be a certain win with a poor start after he had taken pole position with a scintillating performance on Saturday.
It was also the 50th podium finish of Rosberg’s career and prevented Hamilton completing a cherished hat-trick of Italian wins, to equal a feat achieved only once before by Juan Manuel Fangio in the 1950s, and register his 50th career victory. Our auto has been awesome this weekend and I extend a massive thank you to the whole team.
So this week it’s Fernando Alonso who wins in this category, screeching, “I don’t know what that means!” when his race engineer suggested a particular strategy, and then laughing in the face of his team when they suggested that he push a bit harder to move towards Romain Grosjean in front of him.
Rosberg started from second place on the grid to pass Hamilton, who started from pole, to win in Monza.
“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. “He is a fair racer and had seen me in the mirrors so I knew he wouldn’t turn in, so I had a go”, Ricciardo recalled.
Mercedes’ start problems, which have also affected Rosberg (though not to the same extent), have been ongoing since a year ago and were exacerbated by new race-start regulations that put more control in the drivers’ hands.
Finnish teammate Kimi Raikkonen was fourth, with Australian Daniel Ricciardo fifth for Red Bull in a race with little drama on the track but more atmosphere than most of the others combined off it.
Ironically, Hamilton and Mercedes’ struggles have been good for F1 fans. “I just got lots of wheel spin”.
He’s also handed his team-mate the momentum in the drivers’ championship – Rosberg is now just two points behind.
“I was right in the sweet spot today and I was able to get an exceptional lap time out of it”, said Hamilton. “We’ve got to make sure we don’t get stuck behind people again”, he said. Nasr was given a 10-seconds penalty.
Referring to the championship, in which there are seven races remaining, Rosberg said: “The race is on”.
With 17 laps remaining, Rosberg led Hamilton by 11.5 with Ricciardo third, until he took his delayed second stop for more super-softs to equip him for a final high-speed scrap with Bottas.
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Felipe Massa, in his last Italian Grand Prix, qualified 11th in his Williams to miss out on the top ten shootout.
