Lewis Hamilton snatched victory at the Italian Grand Prix after a race long battle with Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen.
Raikkonen was ahead of Hamilton after the pit stops but found himself stuck behind the late-pitting Valtteri Bottas. Bottas allowed Hamilton to catch onto the back of the Ferrari, putting Hamilton in the best position with fresher tyres in the closing stages of the race. Raikkonen put up a strong defence, but the championship leader was able to find a way around the outside just eight laps before the chequered flag.
From there, Hamilton pulled away from the Ferrari to finish almost nine seconds ahead of Raikkonen in front of Ferrari’s home crowd.
His championship rival Sebastian Vettel could only manage fourth after contact with Hamilton on the opening lap. The pair had been running side by side through the chicane when they made contact, sending Vettel into a spin and damaging his front wing.
The Ferrari came into the pits while the safety car was brought out to recover Brendon Hartley, who was wiped out of the race in a separate incident.
From there, Vettel kept his head down and slowly picked up positions to climb up to fifth by the closing stages of the race. He didn’t have the pace to catch the battling Valtteri Bottas and Max Verstappen ahead of him, but a mistake for Verstappen gave him the opportunity for a fourth place finish.
Bottas came out behind Verstappen when he eventually came into the pits. Bottas was on the attack, making multiple moves on the Red Bull before trying to pass Verstappen around the outside of the chicane. Verstappen pushed him wide, making contact with the Mercedes and forcing Bottas onto the escape road. Both were able to continue, but Verstappen was handed a five second penalty.
Despite now fighting to stay ahead of Vettel, Verstappen continued to fight to keep Bottas behind him. He told the team he was aware he was losing time to the Ferrari but “didn’t really care”. He stayed ahead of Bottas on the road, but dropped back to fifth in the net timings.
Vettel picked up fourth, but Hamilton was still able to extend his championship lead by 17 points.
Romain Grosjean picked up best of the rest after a battle with the Force India duo. Esteban Ocon took seventh, less than a tenth of a second ahead of Sergio Perez.
Carlos Sainz and Lance Stroll completed the top 10.
Having started from the back of the grid after an engine change, there was more disappointment for Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo, who pulled to the side of the track with a smoking car late in the race. It was the third retirement of the race, with Fernando Alonso pitting early with a mechanical problem and Hartley retiring due to an opening lap incident.
Sergey Sirotkin finished just outside the points in P11, his best result of the season, having spent much of the race inside the top 10.
Charles Leclerc took P12, ahead of Stoffel Vandoorne, Nico Hulkenberg, and Pierre Gasly.
Marcus Ericsson, who was involved in the opening lap incident with Hartley, finished 16th.
Kevin Magnussen took 17th after pitting early with bodywork damage due to contact with Perez.
