Italian Grand Prix: Rosberg’s bonanza in Monza

German wins second straight race to cut Hamilton’s lead to two points

MONZA: Nico Rosberg pounced on a poor start by his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton to win yesterday’s Italian Grand Prix and cut his championship lead to just two points.

The 31-year-old German took the lead at the start, when pole-sitter Hamilton became bogged down, and pulled away to control the race with calm aplomb and finish 15 seconds clear of the defending three-time champion.

Hamilton, who effectively lost the race in the first 20metres when the lights went out, now leads the title race with 250 points ahead of Rosberg on 248.

Sebastian Vettel came home third, 5.9 seconds further adrift, ahead of his Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonen to the delight of the home fans.



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.

“Thank you very much guys,” said Rosberg. “It’s great to win in Italy.”

It was also the 50th podium finish of Rosberg’s career and prevented Hamilton completing a cherished hat-trick of Italian wins, to equal a feat achieved only once before by Juan Manuel Fangio in the 1950’s, and register his 50th career victory.

It was the first time in seven years that the race was not won by the driver starting from pole position.



Daniel Ricciardo finished fifth for Red Bull ahead of Valtteri Bottas of Williams, Dutch teenager Max Verstappen who was seventh in the second Red Bull, Sergio Perez of Force India, retirement-bound Felipe Massa in the second Williams and German Nico Hulkenberg in the second Force India.

Hamilton, meanwhile, admitted he had no explanation for his terrible grid getaway at the Italian Grand Prix.

The series leader and defending three-time world champion, who plummeted from pole position to sixth said: “Obviously, it was lost at the start. I knew that my engineers would be worried or nervous of how the start went, so that is why I tried to put their mind at ease.”

He continued: “I don’t know what happened. I will try to understand it later. I did everything normal. I did the sequence exactly the same, I think I just got lots of wheel-spin — a bit like Nico’s start in Hockenheim. It’s so hard to overtake here, but we live to fight another day.”

Published in The Express Tribune, September 5^th, 2016.

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