Lewis Hamilton has closed the gap to Nico Rosberg in the F1 World Championship by leading home a Mercedes one-two in the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. Defying an awful start, which saw him plunge from pole position to fourth at the first corner, Hamilton responded by producing a storming drive to charge back to the front before pressuring Rosberg into the pivotal race-costing mistake that saw the German, previously lauded for his mental strength, miss the first chicane and hand the lead over to his title rival.
If Hamilton’s victory over Rosberg — loudly booed, for a successive race weekend, on the Monza podium — was ultimately a matter of superior pace and its destabilizing effect, it also owed a substantial debt to the racing instinct that courses through the Englishman’s veins. Advised by his race engineer to slow to two seconds behind Rosberg after the first round of pit-stops, Hamilton’s immediate response was to set the fastest lap of the race and close within 1/2 second of his teammate. For Lewis, speed is always the best strategy of all.
It was all too much for Rosberg, who appeared uncomfortable on and off the track all weekend, who promptly locked up and slithered up the escape road. Hamilton never looked back, building up a comfortable 3s margin of victory to close within 22 points of the title summit. Once again, it’s game on in the World Championship.
The essence of the 2014 Italian Grand Prix was captured in the expression of pure relief that transformed the saturnine features of Mercedes’ motorsport chief, Toto Wolff. The departure of apprehension is one of the most exhilarating of feelings and Wolff’s countenance was reshaped from a picture of deep pensiveness to one of smiling repose as Lewis Hamilton replaced Nico Rosberg at the front of the race without going anywhere near him.
Then, at the end of the race, Wolff’s face changed once more, splitting into an ecstatic grin as Hamilton and Rosberg sped over the winning line with just over three seconds between them.
Surprisingly, in view of Mercedes’ swaggering domination this year, it was the team’s first one-two finish since the Austrian race back in June; such is the cost of internecine warfare.
The black history of the previous round in Spa, when Rosberg clattered into Hamilton and ruined his race, had dominated the buildup to Monza, magnifying the already intense pressure on the Mercedes team. They will win both world championships in the next few weeks but they cannot afford not to, given the money and manpower that they have poured into the task.
The Monza race, like that in Spa, did not give us the vibrant tussle between the Silver Arrows that everyone craved. But when the fastest event on the Formula One calendar had rushed to its conclusion the feeling of satisfaction was not confined to the Mercedes garage. There was a rightness about Hamilton’s victory, a sense of appropriateness after all the mishaps that have showered down on his head this season, though he has made plenty of mistakes too.
It was also a fair result in as much as Hamilton had been about a quarter of a second a lap faster than Rosberg all weekend. His 28th win took him ahead of Sir Jackie Stewart as Britain’s second most successful driver after Nigel Mansell (31). The 29-year-old is now seventh in the overall list of winners.
More relevantly for him, his victory cut Rosberg’s lead from 29 points to 22 with six races remaining, including that ridiculous, concluding double points affair in Abu Dhabi. His sixth win of the year made it the most successful of his career; this was also his second triumph at this most evocative of circuits.
Hamilton got off to an awful start because his car was trapped in the wrong mode and he slipped from pole position back to fourth as he was overtaken not just by Rosberg but also by Kevin Magnussen and Felipe Massa.
Hamilton was told by his engineer: “Everything is in a muddle. Don’t change anything. We’re looking into it.” Hamilton watched Rosberg disappear as the championship leader made the most of his team-mate’s latest misfortune.
But Hamilton recovered his car and himself. He made the most of Massa’s pass on Magnussen to overtake the McLaren driver himself. Then he drove around the outside of Massa at the first chicane on lap 10 to give him the inside line on the next turn. It was a delicious manoeuvre. Then he hunted down Rosberg.
He was told by his race engineer to maintain a distance of two and a half seconds between himself and Rosberg and to save the race until the end. But he cheerfully ignored this advice and continued to close on his great rival.
Rosberg, who had gone straight on at turn one on the ninth lap, now did the same on the 29th and an unbelieving Hamilton seared past him. This lap was also Hamilton’s fastest of the race, a sign of his adrenaline-filled joy. There was simply no way back for the essentially slower Rosberg.
Max Chilton had the second retirement of his career but there was a more high-profile failure when Fernando Alonso dropped out of the race just past the halfway stage, his first mechanical failure since 2009. With Kimi Raikkonen coming home ninth this was a poor afternoon for Ferrari, who slipped into fourth place in the constructors’ championship behind Williams; it was a dark day for the tifosi.
“In Formula One, as in sport in general, there are days to forget, and this was certainly one of them,” said Ferrari’s team principal, Marco Mattiacci. “Unfortunately, we had no way of predicting the problem that affected Fernando’s car, but I am sorry it happened right here in Monza at our home race.
“Even though we are making progress, we knew these last two races would be very difficult. Therefore, while it’s impossible to accept a result like this, now our only thought is to get back to being competitive as soon as possible.” Massa showed a return to form to come third and his Williams team-mate Valtteri Bottas battled up from the midfield to finish fourth.
Daniel Ricciardo once again beat Sebastian Vettel in the battle of the Red Bulls, a disappointment for the world champion who had outqualified his brilliant young team for the fourth time in five races. But it was the different tyre strategy that did for Vettel as much as anyone else.
There was a stirring duel between Sergio Pérez and Jenson Button, who finished seventh and eighth respectively. Magnussen finished seventh on the road but was hit by a five-second penalty after forcing Bottas off the track at the first chicane.
So there was plenty of vivid racing but, to Wolff’s relief, none of it took place at the front of the race. There was also joy writ large in the face of Hamilton’s father, Anthony, who said: “Lewis drove like he knows how to and that is the way to do this. He can catch up in this championship. It is just head down and drive like he did in go-karts – to win. Drive to win, no other way.
“What has happened to Lewis in the past few weeks has been unreal. Sometimes things go well, and then they go badly. It is down to the strength of character of the driver to keep plugging away and be honest about how hard it is. It is not about engines or anything, it is about getting out there and doing your job.
“It is all character building but it is extraordinary – and that is why I am feeling this extra special something, that this championship is about giving Lewis such a hard time but he comes through it. We just have to keep the faith.”
And now we can all keep faith in a gloriously compelling Formula One season which may well run to the very last race.
Italian Grand Prix results
1. Lewis Hamilton (GB) Mercedes 1:19:10.236 2. Nico Rosberg (Ger) Mercedes +00:03.175 3. Felipe Massa (Br) Williams 00:25.026 4. Valtteri Bottas (Fin) Williams 00:40.786 5. Daniel Ricciardo (Aus) Red Bull 00:50.309 6. Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Red Bull 00:59.965 7. Sergio Pérez (Mex) Force India 01:02.518 8. Jenson Button (GB) McLaren 01:03.063 9. Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari 01:03.535 10. Kevin Magnussen (Den) McLaren 01:06.171 11. Daniil Kvyat (Rus) Toro Rosso 01:11.184 12. Nico Hülkenberg (Ger) Force India – Mercedes 01:12.606 13. Jean-Eric Vergne (Fr) Toro Rosso 01:13.093 14. Pastor Maldonado (Ven) Lotus 1 lap 15. Adrian Sutil (Ger) Sauber 1 lap 16. Romain Grosjean (Fr) Lotus 1 lap 17. Kamui Kobayashi (Jpn) Caterham 1 lap 18. Jules Bianchi (Fr) Marussia 1 lap 19. Esteban Gutiérrez (Mexico) Sauber 2 laps 20. Marcus Ericsson (Swe) Caterham 2 laps Retired: Fernando Alonso (Spn) Ferrari 25 laps; Max Chilton (GB) Marussia 48 laps
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