Lewis Hamilton won the Italian Grand Prix race! Mercedes driver was the best and defeated the Ferrari duo - Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel. The defeat of the Italians is painful because they were defeated at home at the Monza circuit. The win increased Hamilton's lead over Vettel in the general classification.
- Lewis Hamilton's great triumph - he won the Italian GP.
- Scuderia drivers took the second and fourth place.
- Williams drivers had pretty successful results - Lance Stroll was tenth, and Sergey Sirotkin was eleventh.
All in all in qualifications the fastest were Ferrari's representatives. However pole position belonged to Raikkonen, not Vettel who was the favorite. People were wondering wether Scuderia will decide to use team orders and make it Germany to win at the Temple of Speed. Especially that he was followed by Hamilton, who fought Vettel for the world championship.
The start of the race was the key and it turned out to be the Ferrari's drivers show. Both Raikkonen and Vettel maintained their positions. However, in the fifth turn Hamilton decided to attack Vettel aggressively on the outside. Hamilton overtook the four-time world champion who spun and fell at the end of the stake. Hamilton was at the second place. Additionally in the Vettel's car the front wing was damaged and the 31-year-old had to drive to the pit stop. AT THIS LINK you can watch the Hamilton' and Vettel's contact.
Because of this accident the security car showed up on the route. It is worth to mention that earlier Brendon Hartley (Toro Rosso) and Marcus Ericsson (Sauber) also had a collision. It was the end of competition for the New Zealander. Max Verstappen (Red Bull) moved to the top three, after a fuss at the start, who took advantage of Vettel's problems and also overtook Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes).
After SC Hamilton immediately decided to attack, who in great style overtook Raikkonen and took the lead. Finn did not want to give up and in a moment was at the first place again. In the meantime, the judges announced that a collision between Hamilton and Vettel will be treated as a race incident, and contact was made by Sergio Perez (Force India) and Kevin Magnussen (Haas).
Vettel tried to make up for the lost position. Germany overtook, among others Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull) and Charles Leclerc (Sauber) moving to the twelfth place. Fernando Alonso (McLaren) was eliminated on the tenth round of the race. There was a failure in the car that prevented the Spaniard from continuing to drive.
Vettel overtook two Williams drivers - Siergiej Sirotkin and Lance Stroll, and moved to the eighth position. Later on he quickly moved up to the seventh place.
On the 21st round Raikkonen drove to the service avenue. Hamilton still didn't visit pit stop. A moment later, "Iceman" informed about small rainfall, while in the car of Daniel Ricciardo, a power unit failure occurred that eliminated the Australian from further competition.
Over the next few laps, Raikkonen made up for losses to Hamilton, who still had no visit at the pits. He decided to do it only in the 28th lap. Although the pit stop of the current world champion was fast, the leader wasn't able to overtake Raikkonen. The 33-year-old's hope lay in Bottas. The Finn took the lead in the race and was supposed to slow down his senior countryman.
Bottas did his job perfectly, because for twenty laps before the finishing line Hamilton's loss to Raikkonen was less than a second. After a while the difference between the two decreased to half a second, and what is more the 2007 World Champion reported problems with tires.
On the 37th lap, Bottas replaced his tires and returned to the track as the fourth. The position of the leader regained the Raikkonen. In the meantime, Vettel was advanced to the fifth place.
Ten laps before the end of the race, Bottas made contact with Verstappen. It was a huge mistake as he found himself out of the track. The Finn was able to continue the fight, but he stayed behind the Dutchman for over four seconds. On the 44th lap, Hamilton finally beat Raikkonen and took the lead in the race.
In the meantime, the judges announced that Verstappen will be punished (5 seconds) for contact with Bottas.
A few minutes later the competition came to an end. The Italians were in despair because Hamilton won the competition. Raikkonen was second and Verstappen third but the Dutchman fell in the final classification for fifth place due to the five-second penalty. German loses 30 points in the general classification to Hamilton.
1. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) 1: 16.54,484 (25 points)
2. Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) + 8,705 (18 points)
3. Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes) + 13,569 (15 points)
4. Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) + 14.501 (12 points)
5. Max Verstappen (Red Bull TAG-Heuer) + 16,669 (10 points)
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