Lewis Hamilton survived an opening lap tangle with title-rival Sebastian Vettel at the Variante Della Roggia Chicane to win the Italian Grand Prix by snatching the victory from the other Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen.

 

 

Hamilton overtook Vettel’s Ferrari around the outside into the second chicane on the opening lap, and the latter ran wide, contacted the Mercedes, spun and fell to the rear.

 

Vettel made a strong recovery to finish fourth behind the sister Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas, after a five second-time penalty relegated Red Bull’s Max Verstappen to fifth.

 

Polesitter Raikkonen held his lead at the start of the Grand Prix in-front of the Ferrari faithful as he resisted pressure from his team-mate and a lock up into the Variante Rettifilo Chicane, before Hamilton got a great slipstream behind the two Ferraris and attacked Vettel around the outside heading into the Variante Della Roggia Chicane.

 

Hamilton kept wheel-to-wheel with Vettel, who drifted into the side of the Mercedes and spun out.

 

Vettel dropped to the rear and had to pit for a new front wing, which was damaged in the tangle as well, but was given a lifeline thanks to the deployment of the safety car.

 

This was due to Brendon Hartley pulling off track moments after the start of the Grand Prix, having been squeezed on the run down into turn one and his front-right destroyed on his Honda-powered STR13.

 

The race went back to green four laps in, with Hamilton getting a good run on Raikkonen at the restart and passing the Ferrari into the Variante Rettifilo Chicane, before Raikkonen fought back with a great counter at the Variante Della Roggia Chicane.

 

For the rest of the first stint, Hamilton slowly fell out of DRS range, but Raikkonen’s gap never increased above two seconds before the Finn pitted from the lead on lap 20.

 

Mercedes were waiting for Hamilton to stop but the Briton opted not to and remained on track eight laps longer, emerging five seconds behind the Finn.

 

However, Mercedes decided to keep Bottas on track with the Finn trying to pass Verstappen, who just pitted and emerged in third place.

 

This meant Bottas could hold up Raikkonen into his championship-leading team-mate Hamilton, and within three laps of the Briton pitting, he was in DRS range of Raikkonen on eight laps younger soft tyres.

 

Bottas lead the Italian Grand Prix until pitting on lap 36, releasing Raikkonen and Hamilton to fight for the victory.

 

Hamilton became very close to Raikkonen as they hit the 45^th lap. He went wheel-to-wheel alongside the Ferrari into the braking zone but passed the Finn around the outside.

 

Raikkonen tried to counter attack the Briton at the Variante Della Roggia Chicane but Hamilton held the lead and rapidly pulled clear as the Finn was nursing a front-left blister.

 

The situation saw Raikkonen drop nearly nine seconds behind Hamilton, whose victory extended his Driver’s Championship lead to 30 points as Vettel received another place from Verstappen by taking fourth following the Dutchman’s penalty.

 

Bottas used his fresher rubber to his advantage and slashed through Verstappen’s three second gap and started pushing for third with ten laps remaining.

 

He got a great slipstream on Verstappen heading into the first corner and moved to the outside when the Dutchman under braked to the left at the first chicane, which bumped Bottas onto the grass and the Finn took an excursion in the runoff area.

 

Verstappen was slapped with a five-second time penalty, then defended hard from Bottas when the Finn rapidly recovered from the four second gap, reporting to the team over the radio that he did not care that he was losing time to Vettel.

 

That brought Vettel back into play, who stopped again in his recovery drive to fifth on-track, to get within five seconds of Verstappen and take another two points to his tally.

 

Haas F1 Team’s Romain Grosjean was under intense pressure from the two Racing Point Force India’s in the battle for best of the rest.

 

Grosjean resisted pressure and came home in sixth place, with Esteban Ocon beating his fast-charging Force India team-mate Sergio Perez to seventh after starting the race in 14^th.

 

Renault’s Carlos Sainz ended the race in ninth and ahead of Williams’ Lance Stroll who came home in tenth place and scored the Grove-based outfit’s second points finish of the year.

 

The other Williams of Sergey Sirotkin finished in 11^th place and ahead of Sauber’s Charles Leclerc who was 12^th and the sole running McLaren of Stoffel Vandoorne who finished 13^th.

 

The other Renault of Nico Hulkenberg took 14^th place and finished in-front of Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly who was 15^th and Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson and Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen who were brought up the rear.

 

There were two other retirements at the Italian Grand Prix alongside Hartley, with McLaren’s Fernando Alonso ending his day early with an issue on lap 10 and Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo pulling over with a smoking RB14 racer around the halfway point of the race whilst running in the points.

 

Formula 1 Gran Premio Heineken D’Italia 2018 Race Results Classification (53 Laps)

POS	DRIVER	CAR	LAPS	GAP
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport	53	1h16m54.484s
2	Kimi Raikkonen	Scuderia Ferrari	53	8.705s
3	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport	53	14.066s
4	Sebastian Vettel	Scuderia Ferrari	53	16.151s
5	Max Verstappen	Aston Martin Red Bull Racing	53	18.208s
6	Romain Grosjean	Haas F1 Team	53	56.320s
7	Esteban Ocon	Racing Point Force India F1 Team	53	57.761s
8	Sergio Perez	Racing Point Force India F1 Team	53	58.678s
9	Carlos Sainz	Renault Sport F1 Team	53	1m28.140s
10	Lance Stroll	Williams Martini Racing	52	1 Lap
11	Sergey Sirotkin	Williams Martini Racing	52	1 Lap
12	Charles Leclerc	Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team	52	1 Lap
13	Stoffel Vandoorne	McLaren-Renault F1 Team	52	1 Lap
14	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault Sport F1 Team	52	1 Lap
15	Pierre Gasly	Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda	52	1 Lap
16	Marcus Ericsson	Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team	52	1 Lap
17	Kevin Magnussen	Haas F1 Team	52	1 Lap
–	Daniel Ricciardo	Aston Martin Red Bull Racing	23	Power Unit
–	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Renault F1 Team	9	Retirement
–	Brendon Hartley	Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda	0	Collision

 

 

2018 Formula 1 World Driver’s Championship Standings

1. Lewis Hamilton – 256 Points.
2. Sebastian Vettel – 226 Points.
3. Kimi Raikkonen – 164 Points.
4. Valtteri Bottas – 159 Points.
5. Max Verstappen – 130 Points.
6. Daniel Ricciardo – 118 Points.
7. Nico Hulkenberg – 52 Points.
8. Kevin Magnussen – 49 Points.
9. Sergio Perez – 44 Points.
10. Fernando Alonso – 44 Points.

 

2018 Formula 1 World Constructors Championship Standings

1. Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport – 415 Points.
2. Scuderia Ferrari – 390 Points.
3. Aston Martin Red Bull Racing – 248 Points.
4. Haas F1 Team – 84 Points.
5. Renault Sport F1 Team – 84 Points.
6. McLaren-Renault F1 Team – 52 Points.
7. Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda – 30 Points.
8. Racing Point Force India F1 Team – 28 Points.
9. Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team – 19 Points.
10. Williams Martini Racing – 5 Points.

 

Round 15 of the 2018 FIA Formula One World Championship heads to the bright lights of the Marina Bay Street Circuit for the Formula 1 2018 Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix from Friday September 14- Sunday September 16.