Lewis Hamilton made the most of a first-lap clash with title rival Sebastian Vettel, to pull off a thrilling Italian Grand Prix victory on Sunday.
The Brit took 25 valuable points, to extend the championship lead over Vettel, who finished fourth, to 30 points. And with seven races and a total of 175 points available, the title, unless anything tragic or comedy of errors occurs, looks certain to return to Mercedes.
Leading the front after four corners, the German in an attempt to stop an overtaking move by Hamilton, clashed with the defending champion that left the front wing of his vehicle broken. It forced him into talking a pit and by the time he restarted Vettel was 18th as Mercedes pair of Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas battled with Kimi Raikkonen for the pole position.
Raikkonen drove with aplomb and although Hamilton took the lead for a brief period when Ferrari’s Raikkonen was asked to take the pit as early as the 20th lap, the Finnish took it back. But Hamilton running without a stop till the 28th lap had minimized the gap that the Ferrari rival had taken.
Bottas in the second position was used by Mercedes to hold off countrymen Raikkonen so that Hamilton could reach them. He eventually took the pit on the 36th lap and that left only Hamilton and Raikkonen battling for the first position.
But although Raikkonen led his older tyres – he had taken a pit stop on the 20th lap – slowly began to wane and it was in the 45th lap that Hamilton Hamilton went for the outside move and overtook the Ferrari rival.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen finished third but was given a five-point penalty for the push on Mercedes’ Bottas, dropping him to fifth behind Bottas on third and Vettel on fourth.
Meanwhile, Hamilton’s fifth victory at Monza drew him to a level with F1 great Michael Schumacher.