Britain’s Lewis Hamilton struggled to explain his calamitous start to the Italian Grand Prix which ruined any chance of a 50th career win and ultimately saw his championship lead cut by rival Nico Rosberg.
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Hamilton passed Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo and Williams’ Valtteri Bottas, leaving just the two Ferraris between him and Rosberg.
For Rosberg the win marks his 21st career victory, his 1st at the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza and 7th of the 2016 season.
Hamilton, who recovered to finish second, informed his team that he was at fault for his slow start, but following the race he insisted it was not his error.
The result sees Rosberg make further in-roads into Hamilton’s Championship lead, cutting the gap from 9 points to just 2 with seven races remaining.
Hamilton headed to Monza hunting a hat-trick of Italian Grand Prix wins, a feat that would have put him on a par with legendary five-time world champion Juan Manuel Fangio.
But a poor opening to the race, after a similar start cost the world champion probable victories at the opening two rounds in Australia and Bahrain, was to prove damaging on Sunday. When he finally reemerged in second place, Hamilton was almost 15 seconds adrift of Rosberg-a gap that proved impossible to make up.
That was not enough to open the door to Vettel in third but ensured there would be no miraculous comeback and Rosberg could coast home to his second successive victory and seventh of the campaign. With it, Ricciardo ended the race in fifth place while Bottas had to contend for sixth.
He closed that to 12.2secs on lap 23 before Rosberg made his single stop the next time around, Hamilton following him in a lap later.
Button started 14th, two places behind team-mate Fernando Alonso, but a bad start left him 20th on the first lap, while the Spaniard moved up to ninth.
“It’s hard to overtake here, so live to fight another day”, he added.
Bottas claimed sixth place ahead of Max Verstappen, with the young Red Bull driver a little off form after a week in which his driving style has been openly criticised. “It is my best approach, so why would I change it? I’m sure we’ll work on what happened at the start between now and Singapore”.
Mercedes’ start problems, which have also affected Rosberg (though not to the same extent), have been ongoing since past year and were exacerbated by new race-start regulations that put more control in the drivers’ hands.
Having completed the Europe leg with two consecutive wins, Rosberg said he was looking forward to the upcoming night race in Singapore. “Force India was amongst the points as Sergio Perez came in 8th, Williams” Felipe Massa 9th and the other Force India driven by Nico Hulkenberg came in 10th.
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Nasr was given a 10-second penalty but Palmer had to retire on lap nine.
