Rosberg has had the thrill of not only beating his teammate and rival Lewis Hamilton in the Belgian and Italian grands prix, but now finds himself only two points behind in the race for the world drivers’ championship.
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Hamilton, though, suffered from a very poor start that saw him drop to sixth by the first turn. In the Constructors’ Championship, Mercedes enjoys 498 points versus the 290 of Red Bull and 279 of Ferrari. On the contrary, Hamilton started on pole but had a disastrous start and was sixth by the first corner.
But there was to be no catching Rosberg, who took the chequered flag 15 seconds ahead of his team-mate and over 20 in front of Vettel. Rosberg has had seven victories to Hamilton’s six this season. “I’m feeling great. The race is on with Lewis of course, it’s always going to be a great battle and I look forward to what’s to come”, he was quoted as saying by the official website of F1. “Remember, Lewis, the three cars ahead are on super-soft tyres so they’ll be quick for a few laps and then they will degrade”, he was told.
“Well, we’ll try. We’re working very hard”.
“As I said yesterday, when we were practicing for the race on Friday I was looking really strong”.
In what turned out to be a relatively clean race, Nico Rosberg crossed the line first to take home his 21st career win and first at Monza. “I just got lots of wheelspin”.
“The race went perfectly for me”, said Rosberg, “and after a good start I was able manage the gap between myself and the vehicle behind”.
“The only thing I heard was in the race he (Hamilton) said “Don’t worry guys I got it wrong in the start”, said the Austrian.
Sebastian Vettel came home third, 5.9 seconds further adrift, ahead of his Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonen to the delight of the home fans. The Aussie passes Bottas to take over fifth, but wouldn’t be able to move any higher.
Our auto has been incredible this weekend and I extend a massive thank you to the whole team. Esteban Gutierrez, another to make a bad start, was 13th in the second Haas as a late stop for supersofts took Alonso to 14th and the fastest lap of the race.
The Force India of Sergio Perez ended up in eighth position while Felipe Massa, driving his last Italian GP after announcing he is quitting Formula One at the end of the current campaign, finished ninth, with the second Force India of Nico Hulkenberg.
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“I feel incredibly proud and honored to be up amongst Senna and Juan Manuel – incredible drivers – and I never thought my name would be mentioned in the same sentence as theirs”, Hamilton said.
