The start of the Italian GP was absolutely perfect for Hamilton, who managed to maintain his lead easily. I had high hopes for the Ferrari duo but the start turned out to be an absolute nightmare for Kimi. I still don´t know what went wrong but Kimi´s SF15-T got into anti-stall mode, which meant that it took a few seconds for Kimi to get his car rolling from the grid slot. This meant that the Iceman got passed by the whole pack! I can´t help admiring his rivals´ reflexes that nobody actually hit the rear of Kimi´s Ferrari in this very unexpected situation. It was such a devastating moment indeed! Right when everything looked so good in terms of the race... But I knew the Iceman wasn´t going to give up but put up a great overtaking spectacle.
Hamilton started pulling away from his rivals right away. Sebastian tried to keep up with the British Mercedes driver but unfortunately there was very little he could do. Massa in his Williams was third followed by his team-mate Bottas. Rosberg was down in P5. By lap 10 Kimi had already made his way up to P9. The Finn´s driving looked utterly entertaining and Kimi seemed determined to make his way as high up as possible. By lap 14 Rosberg was right at Bottas´ tail but the Finn was determined to keep the German behind him. Rosberg was told on the team radio that his brakes started to overheat so he had to back off a little. Rosberg was the first top driver to pit on lap 19. He rejoined the track on a fresh set of prime tyres. Massa at the wheel of his FW37 pitted a lap later but Rosberg´s undercut move worked out and the Brazilian rejoined the track behind the German Mercedes pilot. Hamilton on the other hand kept on storming on the track and he set faster lap times than those on the fresh set of tyres!
Kimi picked off drivers in front driver by driver. Sebastian pitted not until on lap 26 and the Ferrari pilot rejoined the track in P2. Hamilton pitted from the lead a lap later and easily kept his lead. Kimi was still staying out on track but his tyres were seriously coming off. There was absolutely nothing Kimi could do to prevent Rosberg from overtaking him on the straight. Right after that the Iceman was called to the pits for a fresh set of medium tyres. However, there was huge drama when Kimi was coming to the pit entry as Marussia´s Merhi was about to hit the rear of Kimi´s car. Luckily Merhi was able to control his car and avoid collision. But this episode certainly made my heart jump into my mouth! Luckily Kimi´s pit stop was quick and the Finn rejoined the track in P10.
Kimi continued to put up a staggering overtaking show and on lap 33 Force India´s Hulkenberg had to surrender to the storming Iceman. Hamilton had a safe lead but Sebastian in P2 was slowly but surely getting pressure from Rosberg in P3. With 10 laps to go Hamilton´s lead had already increased into 22 seconds. The Briton proved to be absolutely untouchable. However, with 5 laps to go dark clouds suddenly started to gather upon the Mercedes drivers. On TV we saw clearly upset Toto Wolff and soon after that we heard Hamilton´s team radio message where Hamilton was told to set competitive lap times, not to ask any questions but just execute. I started wondering if there were some technical worries in terms of Hamilton´s car...
On the closing laps Kimi had closed the gap to Perez in his Force India and Kimi attacked the Mexican in turn 1 making his way ahead of the Force India pilot. Excellent work from Kimi indeed! The start of the race had been horrendous for him but he had fought his way through the field in an impressive way. With just two laps to go it was Rosberg´s turn to face huge drama. Without any warning his engine blew out with flames coming from the rear of his car. Rosberg had already closed the gap to Sebastian being ready to fight for the 2nd place! So a highly frustrating DNF for Rosberg and no points!
Hamilton cruised to victory in an absolutely dominant way and Sebastian made all the tifosis super happy by finishing second. I was so so happy for him! The Williams team-mates Massa and Bottas had an intense and thrilling but fair fight for the 3rd place, which ended in Massa´s favor. Kimi drove to the chequered flag in P5, which was a great result after the catastrophic start. The Force India duo scored excellent points as Perez finished 6th and Hulkenberg 7th. Red Bull´s Ricciardo finished 8th, which was the absolute maximum after all the penalties. Ericsson and Kvyat completed the top ten.
However, no matter how dominant Hamilton was today, his victory may still be compromised. Both Mercedes drivers are under investigation over starting tyre pressures. When both Mercedes were checked ahead of the start Hamilton´s left-rear tyre was found to be 0.3 psi below the required mark, with the same tyre on Rosberg´s car 1.1 psi under. Ferrari´s starting tyre pressures were also checked but they were found to be above the required value. So we´re living exciting moments now... What will be the penalty for the breach? Will the Mercedes drivers get a time penalty, which wouldn´t possibly change the result in Hamilton´s case as his winning margin was 25 seconds? Or will the Mercedes duo be excluded from the final standings? I really don´t know what to expect although there was a similar case in the GP2 series this weekend and the driver was excluded from the standings due to a similar breach.
For now Hamilton has massive 252 points in the championship standings to Rosberg´s 199 and Vettel´s 178. It certainly seems that there´s nobody who can challenge the self-confident Mercedes pilot for the championship this year. Rosberg really seems unable to take the fight to his team-mate. So in a fortnight the F1 circus will move to Singapore. The night race in Singapore is in my opinion the most perfect venue for Formula 1. Sebastian has always performed well there so once again I´ll be looking forward to the race with high hopes. And I´m convinced that Kimi won´t make the same mistake with the start twice if it even was his mistake... Roll on Singapore!
P.S. I just read on the Finnish web site that no penalties have been given to the Mercedes drivers due to the breach! Quite unbelievable... Something like this can only happen in Formula 1! (I mean I can´t understand why the GP2 driver was penalised for a similar breach and the F1 drivers weren´t... It doesn´t make any sense to me!)
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