“We have had so many things go against us on our side of the garage, so to come back and be where we are, there are still lots of great things that can happen going forward”.
Advertisement
However, after dropping to sixth, Hamilton recovered to charge back up the field and Mercedes’ single pit-stop strategy proved better than Ferrari’s two-stop plan.
When Rosberg suggested the 2016 rule changes meant variable starts were normally down to driver performance, Hamilton argued that there were still many technical reasons why a getaway might be slow.
But the race fell into the German’s lap when Hamilton stuttered away from the line and was swamped by the cars behind him, with Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel moving into second ahead of team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, Williams’ Valtteri Bottas and Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo.
“What role I play is my decision”, he said. “The contract is only for three years, but I hope we will be here for another 100”, said Ecclestone. Maybe I should have gone to the left, I wasn’t sure what Lewis was going to do. And then I had another crack, another look into Turn Four but I wasn’t close enough to be honest.
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.
Hamilton said he had loads of wheel spin as the red lights went off at the start of the GP.
But the Monza triumph, while a fine achievement, did nothing to dispel the view that the only way he will leave the Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on November 27 as world champion will be if more mistakes and problems hit Hamilton.
But Rosberg responded to extend his lead and it some became clear that, with his tyres needing to be nursed to keep them in shape, Hamilton hadn’t got the speed to get back in touch with Rosberg and the German completed a comprehensive 15sec victory. “It speaks for the team”. I hear that coming to Monza it’s a sort of extra burden, extra pressure, I think it’s much the opposite for everyone in the team. “I did everything as normal”.
A strong result for Ferrari at their home race moved the Scuderia to within 11 points of Red Bull Racing in the battle for second in the constructors’ title. “Because now it’s down to the driver to do it, it’s more hard”, declared Rosberg. Nobody. Because if you start to blame people this is when it starts going downhill because people will try to protect their a*** and make sure they have a conservative system in place rather that putting the best developments on the auto.
Advertisement
Toto Wolff says Mercedes will carry out a full investigation into its start clutch procedure back at its Brackley factory and is confident his team will solve the issue before the next race in Singapore. We talk about manual starts, the one thing making the 2016 season exciting (apart from Verstappen).
