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

Lewis Hamilton grabs pole at Monza

Lewis Hamilton had dominated the practice sessions yesterday and today and also maintained his form to grab the pole in Monza in the F1 Italian Grand Prix. History shows that the pole sitter mostly wins the race in Italy.

This is the home ground of Ferrari and the two Ferrari drivers didn’t disappoint the crowd. Kimi Raikkonen scored P2 followed by Sebastian Vettel in P3. Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari came in 1m 23.631 seconds to score the P2. Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari will start the race tomorrow in P3. He had a time of 1m 23. 685s.

Nico Rosberg had to revert back to his older engine and couldn’t beat the two Ferrari drivers. He had to be satisfied with 4th. He had a time of 1m 23. 703s

In the Q3, most of the drivers except Sergion Perez and Marcus Ericsson choose to set to do two laps one at the beginning and the other at the end. In the first such lap, Hamilton scored 1m23.397 for the provisional pole. He was 0.3 seconds faster than Vettel. In the last lap, Lewis Hamilton couldn’t better his own time.

Felipe Massa of Williams and Valtteri Bottas of Williams came in at P5 and P6. Felipe Massa’s time was 1m 23. 940s. Valtteri Bottas was 1m 24. 127 seconds.
Sergio Perez of Force India came in 7th with a time of 1m 24. 626s. He will start in the 4th row. Romain Grosjean of Lotus will start alongside Perez in the 4th row, as he was 8th with a time of 1m 25.054s.

Nico Hulkenberg had a power failure after the first lap and couldn’t take part in the second run. His time of 1m 25.317 was sufficient for P9. Marcus Ericsson of Sauber was 1m 26.214s and was P10. He is however being investigated for impeding Pastor Maldonado during Q1.

In the Q2, Pastor Maldonado of Lotus, Felipe Nasr and Carlos Sainz of Toro Rosso, Daniil Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull were eliminated from the top ten shoot out as the 11th to 15th placed drivers.

The past results in Monza showed that amazing speed to clinch
The F1 Qualifying is a three stage affair with the first session or Q1 run for 18 minutes where the bottom most 5 drivers are eliminated. In Q2 the rest ie 15 cars run where the top ten qualify for the Q3.

Drivers eliminated in the Q1

Jenson Button
Fernando Alonso
Will Stevens
Roberto Merhi
Max Verstappen

Jenson Button of McLaren had a time of 1m 26.058 and his teammate Fernando Alonso was 1m 26.154 seconds. Will Stevens of Marussia clocked a time of 1m 27.731 and his teammate Roberto Merhi had a time of 1m 27.912. Verstappen of Toro Rosso had an unfortunate incident where his engine cover blew off and he couldn’t do a timed lap.

This year has been unbelievably bad for McLaren who are down with the Marussia cars at the bottom. Though McLaren team has an excuse that they are using Honda engines and Honda has just returned to F1 meaning they are behind, it is not know if all the problems are due to the engine. According to Honda, they are better than the Renault engine and about 30-40 hp slower than the Mercedes and about 25 hp slower than the Ferrari. From that one can guess that atleast McLaren should have been faster than the Toro Rosso and Red Bulls. It appears that McLaren with two world champions are driving trucks while others are racing.

Italian Grand Prix Qualifying Results 2015

Hamilton Wins Italian Grand Prix in Monza

Hamilton wins Italian Grand Prix in Monza 2014

If one is told that there is a problem with the Mercedes car, then invariably one would guess that it is Hamilton's car. If there is a slow pitstop then it would be Hamilton's. So many people gave up when Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes had a problem during the start and his second placed team-mate-cum-competitor Nico Rosberg took the lead.

It was said that there was a glitch in the race start software. Hamilton dropped down to fourth but patiently waited for his time. After 6 laps his problem was resolved. He then took his time and overtook Massa on lap 10.

Hamilton then put lot of pressure on Rosberg. Nico Rosberg was the first to pit. Hamilton followed one lap later. Hamilton did a good lap when in lead, however it was not sufficient to overtake Rosberg during the pitstop. Nevertheless, Hamilton kept on the pressure and Rosberg cracked. He ran wide in the chicane and Lewis Hamilton took the race lead in lap 29.

To make matters worse for Rosberg, Lewis Hamilton had consumed one kg less fuel. So it was a forgone conclusion that Lewis will win the race. And he won with more than 3 seconds lead over Nico Rosberg.

Felipe Massa of Williams got his first podium of the year when he finished in third place.

In the meanwhile, there was superb driving by Daniel Ricciardo who overtook number of cars and his team-mate and defending champion Sebastian Vettel to finish 5th behind Valtteri Bottas of Williams.

Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull finished in 6th. He was followed by Sergio Perez of Force India in 7th. Perez finished before his former teammate Jenson Button of McLaren.

Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari finished 9th behind Button. Button's team-mate Kevin Magnussen finished in 10th in the last points earning position.

Kvyat of Toro Rosso finished in 11th ahead of Nico Hulkenberg of Force India. Jean-Eric Vergne of Toro Rosso finished in 13th ahead of Pastor Maldonado of Lotus. Sutil of Sauber came 15th ahead of Romain Grosjean of Lotus in 16th. Kamui Kobayashi of Caterham returned to race after staying out for one race and finished in 17th and was followed by Jules Bianchi of Marussia. Esteban Gutierrez of Sauber was 19th ahead of the last finisher of Ericsson of Caterham.

Retirements in Italian Grand Prix 2014

Fernando Alonso of Ferrari in lap 28
Max Chilton of Marussia in lap 5