The series leader and defending three-time world champion, who plummeted from pole position to sixth said: “Obviously, it was lost at the start”.
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Rosberg, victor in Belgium last weekend, set his best lap of the morning on the soft tyres as did Hamilton, who was one of several drivers to have off-track excursions as they probed the limits. The race went perfectly for me and after a good start I was able manage the gap between myself and the vehicle behind.
Hamilton managed to get past Ricciardo and Bottas and, because Vettel and Raikkonen were on a two-stop strategy (the Mercedes pair were on one-stop), he managed to finish behind Rosberg.
Nico Rosberg moved to just two points behind Hamilton after he took advantage of his title rival’s slow getaway to claim his second victory in eight days.
“We can not go there with too much confidence because we were miles off past year – 1.8 seconds – and that is huge, so it is our most hard race and it will be a challenging weekend”, Rosberg added.
“If I thought about a 43-point lead going to 19 points behind, then I would lose sleep over that, so I don’t think about it and I just enjoy winning races”.
Much to the delight of the red clad throngs Sebastian Vettel and his Ferrari were the best of the rest finishing third and putting a Ferrari driver on the podium to cheered by the thousands of Italian race fans who mobbed the track in front of the podium stand.
“An F1 race is never straightforward”. I think overall I’m pretty happy, not so much with the beginning of the lap but I think our race pace is better than the gap in qualifying indicates, so we’ll see.
“Overall it has been a good weekend so far, putting both cars in the second row.” said Vettel “I’m sure we can have a good race from there tomorrow”. Once the lights go out we hope we can find a good traction which the tires should give us. “I got up to second and that is the best I could do”. “I felt good on qualifying pace as well, but Lewis had his best day of the year, and when he has his best day of the year it’s hard to beat him”.
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”. “Fifteen seconds is a long way back with today’s tyres”. Every now and again we get a drastic variation.
Rounding out the top five was Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo.
It was Rosberg’s first Italian win, his seventh of the season and 21st of his career, boosting his championship challenge with seven races remaining.
“I can tell you now that I do have a two-year contract starting next year with McLaren-Honda”, said Button.
“We think we’ve made progress, but 1.8 seconds, that’s not going to be easy [to make up]”.
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The German also broke into Italian before attempting to win over the crowd with a rousing sing-along.
