As the lights turned green for the Italian Grand Prix, the second place car on the grid, the Ferrari of Raikkonen, did not move leaving the rest of the field to pass the Fin, thankfully not resulting in any start line collisions. In contrast Hamilton had a perfect start from pole position, the Brit led the pack into the first corner, unlike his teammate who dropped to 6th place behind both Williams’.
The second lap of the race provided just as much excitement as the first, as Button moved up to 10th, Raikkonen dropped down to 18th, Grosjean was the first to retire, followed by his teammate Maldonado. To have both Lotus out of race before the 3rd lap was less than ideal for the financially strapped team.
By lap 6 Raikkonen was cutting through the field in an attempt to make up lost places.
Lap 16 saw a rare fight between the McLaren of Button and the Toro Rosso of Verstappen for 12th place, yet unsurprisingly the Honda did not have the power to get passed the Renault.
As lap 18 pit stop window opened one of the first to pit was Rosberg, enabling the German to get ahead of the Williams duo after their much slower pit stops.
Lap 28, after the majority of the grid’s pit stops, saw Rosberg pass Raikkonen to take 3rd place, shortly after Raikkonen requested the team for his stop, before resuming his charge through the field towards the front of the pack.
By halfway, the Williams duo had dropped back from the Mercedes of Rosberg, leaving him to catch Vettel.
On lap 43 Hamilton was leading the race with a huge advantage of a 22 seconds to second placed Vettel.
The closing stages of the race saw more excitement, as on lap 50 the Honda-powered McLaren of Alonso retired. Toto Wolff and the Mercedes team appeared visibly concerned as they asked Hamilton to give it Hammer time to extend the gap to the chasing Ferrari of Vettel, and to not ask any questions. Then lap 51 saw Rosberg’s Mercedes engine and potential championship hopes go up in flames.
The Brit of Hamilton led from the start and took the victory, followed by Vettel in 2nd place and the Williams of Massa in 3rd.
