Lewis
Hamilton of Mercedes AMG Petronas won the Formula 1 Gran Premio d’Italia 2014,
making it one-two for Mercedes as team mate Nico Rosberg came in second. It was
sweet revenge for Hamilton as he had been unfairly edged out of the previous
race by his partner. Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas of William-Mercedes came
in third and fourth respectively. They were followed by Daniel Ricciardo and
Sebastain Vettel of Infiniti Red Bull Racing. But it was a clean Mercedes
podium finish after the gruelling 53 laps at the legendary 5.793km Monza
circuit.
Unfortunately,
earlier in the race in lap 29, Fernando Alonso of Ferrari had to stop his car with
a problem. Alonso had finished every race in the points this year. Replays
suggested that he got stuck in the top gear.
Lap
six saw Briton Max Chilton of Marussia-Ferrari going into the second chicane
too fast and bumping over a sausage kerb, launching his car into the gravel. He
came to a halt in the barriers. It was the Briton’s second retirement of the
season
The
race concluded with Sergio Perez of Force India coming in seventh, followed by
Jenson Button of McLaren-Mercedes, Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari, and Kevin
Magnussen of McLaren-Mercedes making up the top ten winners of the race.
The
race started with Lewis Hamilton taking his first pole position in eight races
as he and his Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg locked out the front row. Row two
had Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa of Williams-Mercedes. Row three had
McLaren-Mercedes’ Kevin Magnussen and Jenson Button. This completed an all-Mercedes
–powered top six. Seventh was Fernando Alonso of Ferrari, while teammate Kimi
Raikkonen was 11th. Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo
were eight and ninth. Force India’s
Sergio Perez was tenth.
Toto
Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat qualified 11th but started 21 after becoming
the first man to take an engine-change penalty in 2014. Caterham’s Marcus
Ericsson qualified 22 but started from the pit lane as penalty for failing to
slow under yellow flags on Saturday.
The
race was held on a fine and dry day with no rain interrupting the race. The top
ten raced on medium-compund Pirelli tyres at the start of the race. In Lap 25 Rosberg pitted from the lead and took
on hard tyres while a lap later Hamilton too pitted and took on hard tyres.
Hamilton also recorded the fastest lap (29) with a timing of 1:28.004. This was
despite the fact that in lap 27 Hamilton was told to hang back a bit from
Rosberg for the time being to save his tyres and stay out of dirty air.
Hamilton, however, does not heed his engineer’s advice and goes on to set the
fastest lap.
Lap
51 saw Esteban Gutierrez of sauber-Ferrari limping back to the pits with a
puncture after getting it wrong over the kerbs at Turn 1. Gutierrez and Romain Grosjean of
Lotus-Renault were to be investigated after the race.
Picture of Lewis Hamilton car in qualifying
at Monza, courtesy Daimler