Lewis Hamilton dropped from first to sixth at the beginning of the Italian GP after making a poor start.
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Sunday’s win is Rosberg’s seventh of the season and keeps him second in the F1 driver standings on 248 points, two points behind Hamilton at the top with 250 points.
Sebastian Vettel came home third, 5.9 seconds further adrift, ahead of his Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen to the delight of the home fans.
“When you start to blame this is when it goes downhill because people will try to protect their arse and make sure they have a conservative system in place rather than putting the best development on the auto”.
The reigning world champion inherited second when the Ferraris pitted for fresh sets of super-soft tyres.
Thereafter Rosberg drove with the same precision he demonstrated last week in Belgium and was able to ease away on his soft Pirelli tyres as the supersoft-shod Ferraris of Vettel and Raikkonen led Bottas and Ricciardo at the end of the lap.
“No, because as I say I am not thinking about it”.
Though Hamilton pushed to catch his title rival, he locked up at the first chicane, bouncing across the speed bumps in the middle before rejoining.
Ricciardo’s awesome lunge on Valtteri Bottas for fifth place in the closing stages helped the Australian hold on to third in the drivers’ championship. It might seem harsh to pass such judgement on the man who finished second, but he was the architect of his own downfall with such a poor start.
“Nico drove a great race… and did what he had to do”.
“I feel that part of me is Italian in a way, because I have a lot of friends here and I grew up with the culture”.
“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…”
Asked if he had ever anxious that his title chances were over during the summer break, Rosberg said: “No, because as I say I am not thinking about it”.
With the European leg of the season over the Formula One circus heads to tracks that will offer Ricciardo a lot more encouragement to be bidding for podium positions, with the tight Singapore street circuit under lights next up on September 18.
“I think we had good pace but it was sort of expected that they would be quicker than us in race pace”, said Vettel, who got the loudest cheers on the podium.
Team Force India secured the eight and 10th spot through drivers Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg, respectively.
Amongst the close-but-clean racing, incidents were few, though Renault’s Jolyon Palmer and Sauber’s Felipe Nasr tangled at Turn 2 on the second lap; both failed to finish and Nasr was given a 10s penalty for causing their collision.
“Because if I think about 43 points going to 19, I would lose sleep over that”.
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Daniil Kyvat’s Toro Rosso and Pascal Wehrlein’s Manor also ran into trouble and retired midway through the race.
