Hamilton and Mercedes outbox & outfox Ferrari for victory at Monza; Raikkonen salvages P2; Bottas elevated to P3 after Verstappen penalty

Mercedes came to Monza and played the team game so well and with such aplomb that they took the race from Ferrari in their own backyard. With forceful and assertive driving from their ace Lewis Hamilton and then impeccable teamwork from Valtteri Bottas and the strategists on the pit wall, the Silver Arrows outlasted and outperformed the Prancing Horses despite the ardent wishes for a victory from the passionate tifosi in the stands. In the end victory at the Italian Grand Prix was Hamilton’s after elbowing the Sucderia’s Sebastian Vettel out of his way on the first lap and then passing the pole-sitting Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen late in the race with fresher tires. Hamilton could not have done it without Bottas, who stretched his first stint to hold up Raikkonen forcing the veteran Finn to use up precious rubber and enabling Hamilton to close him down.

Pics courtesy Grand Prix247.com

The action began on Lap 1 with Raikkonen, who had set the fatest F1 lap ever in Saturday qualifying for pole, getting away to a good start and holding off his teammate Vettel, who started beside him in P2 on the grid. But Hamilton, who was directly behind the Ferraris in the second row in P3 alongside his wingman Bottas, was aggressive from the get-go and made a diving move into the Variente del Rettifilo chicane directly alongside Vettel’s blood red car. Vettel appeared to try to shut the door but Hamilton’s Merc was already slipping past him. The two touched and Vettel got the worst of it with a costly spin and damage to his front wing while Hamilton cruised ahead unscathed. The contact was correctly ruled a racing incident by the stewards and fortunately for Vettel a Safety Car was deployed due to the terminally wounded Toro Rosso of Brendon Hartley needing retrieval from the track. Nonetheless, Vettel was now consigned to trying to salvage what he could from the day rather than potentially competing for the win.

When the race resumed and the Safety Car was withdrawn at the ned of Lap 3 it quickly settled down into a less frenetic rhythm. Raikkonen continued to lead and Hamilton continued to pursue but not that hard yet, with the Englishman content to combine speed with tire preservation. It would paid off for Hamilton and luck was also a factor. Raikkonen was called into the pits on Lap 21, getting off the Super Soft Pirellis for the more durable Softs, while Hamilton continued to pound around looking to shave as much as possible off the pit stop delta so that he might be closer when his time came to swap tires. Hamilton and Mercedes also caught a break when the Red Bull of the unlucky Daniel Ricciardo expired once again on track on Lap 24 but that only resulted in a local yellow flag not a Safety Car of VSC. Hamilton ran on his first set of Super Softs all the way to Lap 28, also going onto the Softs, and when he reemerged he was in P3 behind his teammate Bottas, who had yet to stop, and Raikkonen, who was desperate to get by his fellow Finn.

But despite his fresher rubber Raikkonen could not get close enough to Bottas to make a move. Instead he seemed to burn off the best performance from his Pirellis trying to do so and, in fact, Bottas was pushing the Ferrari back into the clutches of Hamilton’s Silver Arrow. By Lap 36, when Bottas finally dove for the pits after his fairly epic first stint Hamilton was right on Raikkonen’s gearbox with the Ferrari’s rear tires looking more than a little worse for wear. After holding the hard-charging Englishman off for as long as he could fresher rubber won the day and Hamilton executed the pass for the lead on Lap 45 of this 53 lap classic, steaming away from the Ferrari into the distance and on to the eventual sweet victory. The only question left for Ferrari was if Raikkonen’s tires could make it to the end of the contest. Fortunately they did and Raikkonen and the team got the consolation of a P2 finish. But it was not exactly what the famed Scuderia from Maranello had in mind when they started the race 1-2.

Bottas was running P4 after his stop behind the lone surviving Red Bull of Max Verstappen. With fresher tires Bottas was making up ground on the Dutch wunderkind and tried for a pass on Lap 43 going into the always eventful first Variente. Verstappen appeared to block Bottas and the two made contact, with Bottas having to take the escape road straight through the chicane. Verstappen was judged to be at fault and assessed a 5-second time penalty, which elevated Bottas to the podium at P3. Even worse for team Red Bull, Verstappen insisted on keeping Bottas behind hime for the remaining laps allowing Ferrari’s Vettel, who drove an excellent comeback race after his costly and  disappointing first lap spinout, to close within those 5 seconds and steal P4 from the obstinate Verstappen, who found himself relegated to P5. The young Ducthman gets a lot of slack for his immense talent but this really was case of making a bad situation worse. It certainly cost the team valuable points by indulging in his post-penalty fit of pique by not letting Bottas go and then maintaining the proper gap to Vettel. It’s doubtful that the team, whose bosses think Verstappen walks on water, will say anything to him but it was nonetheless another bonehead play by this immature talent.

Further back in the pack Romain Grosjean had his excellent P6 finish vacated after Renault complained about the floor of his Haas and won their protest due to the Haas team’s inability to comply with the revised floor regulations by the Monza deadline. That was big for the team points, as Renault were able to maintain their P4 in the Constructors’ Championship at Haas’s expense. It also meant that Force India of Esteban Ocon was promoted to that P6, while his teammate Sergio Perez finished P7. Carlos Sainz got the sole points for Renault in P8 and Williams had their first double-points finish of the year thanks to the Haas DQ, with Lance Stroll promoted to P9 and Sergey Sirotkin to P10.

Top 10 finishers of the Italian GP (including the disqualified Romain Grosjean & the promoted Sergey Sirotkin):

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race is in two weeks’ time — the beautiful night race from Singapore’s Marina Bay Street Circuit. Can Ferrari get back on track at a circuit where they should excel? Or will their season fall apart as it did last year when their two drivers collided leaving Mercedes to pick up the pieces? Hope to see you then to find out!