Rosberg wins Italian GP as Hamilton misses start

F1 Grand Prix, GP Italy, Autodromo Nazionale di Monza

Nico Rosberg has probably won the easiest race of his career at Monza, leading the field throughout the entire race. Pole sitter Lewis Hamilton dropped to 6th and had to recover through the race to end up in second position, leading Ferrari's Vettel who completed the podium.

As the lights went out, Rosberg immediately took the lead following a very very difficult start by Lewis Hamilton. The pole sitter got off the line slowly, and ended up at the first chicane down in 6th position, behind Ricciardo. Vettel moved up into second place, with Raikkonen third and Bottas fourth.

Hamilton soon managed to get past Ricciardo, even before DRS was enabled, but after that found it rather difficult to get ahead of Bottas. By lap 5, the championship leader was still stuck in 5th, 6 seconds down on the race leader.

On the second lap, Palmer and Nasr came together, as the Sauber driver was seemingly unaware that Palmer was on the outside on the exit of the turn, bumping his right rear into Palmer's front wing and wheel. Nasr spun with a punctured tyre, but still made it back to the pits, only to retire on lap 7. Palmer on the other hand did not have tyre damage but had to pit for a new front wing, rejoining the race dead last. He also retired

In the battle for 9th, Verstappen made it past Alonso on lap 8, after the Spaniard made a slight mistake on the exit of Parabolica. Despite the error, Alonso had been doing well, progressing from 12th on the grid.

Pascal Wehrlein made a similarly strong start of the race, ending up in 13th position after 10 laps.

On lap 11, Hamilton finally got past Bottas, and immediately upped the pace considerably. 2 laps later, he was 3.3 seconds down on Raikkonen and already 2.3s ahead of Bottas. At the very front, Rosberg at the time had 8 seconds in hand over Vettel while both Ferraris ran at 2s of each other.

Lap 14 marked the first pitstops, done for Bottas, Verstappen and Kvyat. Both Ferraris stopped in the next two laps and opted for another stint on super softs. The stops obviously moved Hamilton into second as the Mercedes ran their first stints on soft tyres, enabling them to stay out longer.

When both Mercedes finally stopped, Rosberg maintained the lead while Hamilton dropped back to 4th again, 4 seconds down on the scarlet cars. Hamilton however was quicker than both Ferraris after his stop, and closed in during the first few laps. On lap 33 and 34, Vettel and Raikkonen switched to softs, dropping to 4th and 6th. Raikkonen however quickly returned to 5th after Verstappen completed his second stop.

Pascal Wehrlein in the meantime retired from the race. He was asked three times to immediately switch off the car, before he eventually did park it at Rettifoglio. Once at the standstill, white smoke emerged from the sidepods.

On lap 41, Hamilton made are mistake as he failed to make it into turn 1, instead locking his front wheels and bumping over the sausages on the tarmac run-off before rejoining the track. The event annulled the progress he had made versus Rosberg, as it saw his disadvantage over the race leader increase from 10 to 13 seconds.

Towards the end of the race, the only real excitements was offered by McLaren and Alonso in particular. Having first reported the traffic light in the McLaren pits was not working, he asked why the team were not following the plan on his second stop. 10 laps from the end, he also got passed by Button, and to make things worse, his race engineer reported "Still strong pace, but Grosjean might come at us towards the end of the race". Alonso laughed sarcastically. 3 laps from the end, the team pitted the Spaniard into used super softs, which he used to take the fastest lap of the race.

Positions at the front were quickly set in stone though, with Rosberg winning ahead of Hamilton. Vettel finished third, 5 seconds down on the second Mercedes.