Dominant Hamilton races to Italian GP glory

Britain’s world champion wins his seventh race of the season; Vettel finishes second.

hamilton
Hamilton is now 53 points clear of Rosberg at the top [AP]

Lewis Hamilton enjoyed an utterly dominant Italian Grand Prix victory to take a 53-point lead in the Formula One championship after Mercedes team mate and closest rival Nico Rosberg retired with his engine in flames.

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel took second place, 25 seconds behind the reigning world champion, to give local fans something to cheer on a sunny afternoon at the team’s home track.

Drivers standings
1.  Lewis Hamilton – 252    
2.  Nico Rosberg – 199    
3.  Sebastian Vettel – 178    
4.  Felipe Massa – 97     
5.  Kimi Raikkonen – 92     
6.  Valtteri Bottas – 91     
7.  Daniil Kvyat – 58     
8.  Daniel Ricciardo – 55     
9.  Romain Grosjean – 38     
10. Sergio Perez – 33  

Brazilian Felipe Massa took third for Williams, crossing the line 0.3 of a second ahead of his Finnish team mate Valtteri Bottas.

The Mercedes driver Hamilton cruised to his third Monza win, the seventh of the season and 40th overall.

Hamilton also achieved a second career grand slam, following Singapore 2014, at a race weekend by topping qualifying, leading every lap en route the race win and posting the fastest race lap as well.

He was also top in all three Monza practice sessions.

The Briton was safe once he won the start where Kimi Raikkonen met disaster when his car stalled and he dropped from second on the grid to temporary last, before recovering to finish fifth.

Rosberg was running in third place before being stopped by what appeared a failure to the engine with two laps left which also marked a major setback for him in the title race.

Ferrari and their fans had hoped for a first home race win in five years since Fernando Alonso’s success in 2010 when Raikkonen and Vettel were close behind Hamilton in qualifying in second and third place.

The next race is September 20 in Singapore.

Race results (top-10):

1 Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes
2 Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari
3 Felipe Massa – Williams-Mercedes
4 Valtteri Bottas – Williams-Mercedes
5 Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari
6 Sergio Perez – Force India – Mercedes
7 Nico Huelkenberg – Force India – Mercedes
8 Daniel Ricciardo – RedBull – Renault
9 Marcus Ericsson – Sauber – Ferrari
10 Daniil Kvyat – RedBull – Renault

Vettel has closed the gap to Rosberg to just 21 points [Reuters]
Vettel has closed the gap to Rosberg to just 21 points [Reuters]
Source: News Agencies