Hamilton wins as Rosberg's dream up in flames

Hamilton wins as Nico’s dream in smoke

Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes wont the Italian F1 Grand Prix 2015 race from pole while his teammate Nico Rosberg’s car went up in smoke.

Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari who started third finished in second position and Felipe Massa of Williams came third. Valtteri Bottas of Williams was 4th.

Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari started second on the grid and it was expected that he may snatch the race lead from Hamilton. However, fortune doesn’t seem to favour Kimi. His car stalled when the race started and he dropped to 18th position. He then had to fight through the field and finished in 5th position.

Vettel was 25 seconds behind Hamilton. And that may play a role as the Mercedes cars of Hamilton and Rosberg are being investigated for alleged tyre pressure problem. However, Mercedes has said that the tyre pressure was verified by the Pirelli engineer. The guidelines by the tyre supplier Pirelli states that teams must race with tyre pressures of 19.5psi or above. Lewis Hamilton’s left rear tyre was 0.3 psi lower than the suggested 19.5psi and Nico Rosberg’s left rear tyre was 1.1 psi lower. Normally in F1, the measurements are pretty accurate unlike the tyre pressure instruments that we use for our consumer cars. So it is indeed a surprise.

In lap 49, Mercedes gave a coded message to Hamilton “Start mode three, we need to pull the gap. Don’t ask questions, just pull the gap”. So Lewis Hamilton immediately upped his pace. At the end Lewis Hamilton has 25.042 seconds lead over Sebastian Vettel. Even if the stewards slap a 25 seconds time penalty on Hamilton, still he will win the race. Edit: The stewards decided that there would not be any penalty due to the lower tyre pressure on Lewis Hamilton's car.

Sergio Perez of Force India finished in sixth. His teammate Nico Hulkenberg of Force India was hit in the opening lap and somehow managed to survive and finish in 7th. However, he was lapped once. Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull was 8th. He was followed by Marcus Ericsson of Sauber in 9th. Daniil Kvyat of Red Bull was 10th to grab the last point.


There were a few retirements in the race.
Pastor Maldonado of Lotus hit the kerbs hard in the first lap and retired his car. His teammate Romain Grosjean was hit from the back and had to also retire the car. Fernando Alonso of McLaren too had a DNF due to an unknown technical issue in lap 50. Nico Rosberg’s car was up in flames a lap later when he was running in third position.



Lewis Hamilton’s championship lead over his teammate Nico Rosberg is now 53 points and it seems Hamilton will easily cruise to the title.

Results of Italian F1 Grand Prix 2015