LEWIS Hamilton drove a terrific Italian Grand Prix and enjoyed every bit of it, especially the huge support from the Italian tifosi.
Unfortunately they didn’t show the same to teammate Nico Rosberg, which was disappointing, as he also drove a good race to take second position.
The Silver Arrows were unbeatable, although Hamilton did have problems with his software at the start and had to fight back.
He only took the lead after putting a lot of pressure on Rosberg, causing him to make a braking error at the end of the main straight.
There were lots of other races within the race, most notably between the Williams pair of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas.
This time it was Massa’s turn to bring his car onto the podium after another high speed demonstration of how good the new Williams car is.
Bottas has just resigned from the team and was unlucky to also lose out, being held back behind Hamilton at the start.
There was a bit of Noah’s Ark going on. After the two Mercedes, and the two Williams, came two Red Bulls, with Daniel Ricciardo outsmarting four times world champion Sebastian Vettel.
It was a delight to behold Ricciardo undertaking a couple of stupendous manouevres.
Jenson Button’s ‘old’ teammate at McLaren, Sergio Perez, did a great job in his Force India Mercedes to beat Button, after the two McLarens of Button and Kevin Magnussen (who started in fifth and sixth spots on the grid) had been separated by both Perez and Kimi Raikkonen, the latter being the only Ferrari home, in ninth place.
Fernando Alonso, after qualifying seventh, and working his way up the field, retired with the most unusual problem of water pump failure after having had two years with the clean record of finishing every race.
This, of course, did not please the tifosi who turned their attention and support to Hamilton.
This leaves the championship a bit more wide open, with Rosberg on 238 points, only 22 points ahead of Hamilton. Daniel Ricciardo is in third place and Bottas fourth.
Mercedes is way ahead on 454 points with Red Bull second on 272 points and Williams third on 177 points with Ferrari a close fourth on 162 points.
Race positions: 1 Lewis Hamilton; 2 Nico Rosberg; 3 Felipe Massa; 4 Valtteri Bottas; 5 Daniel Ricciardo; 6 Sebastian Vettel; 7 Sergio Perez; 8 Jenson Button; 9 Kimi Raikkonen; 10 Kevin Magnussen.
The next event is the night race in Singapore on Sunday, September 21 at 2pm. More of this in my preview next week.
