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Hamilton wins Italian Grand Prix, claims World Championship lead

Writer's picture: Andrew ZarbAndrew Zarb


Lewis Hamilton has won the 2017 Italian Grand Prix in what was a dominant display, with Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas making it a 1-2. Sebastian Vettel completed the podium for Ferrari, much to the delight of the Tifosi. With this victory, Hamilton has leapfrogged Sebastian Vettel in the World Championship standings, to lead the standings for the first time this season. At the start, Hamilton got a decent getaway and led going into the chicane at turn 1. Esteban Ocon got a good start from third on the grid and leapfrogged Stroll into second place. Kimi Raikkonen was another one to get a good start, and at first overtook Bottas, before Bottas eventually got back at him. Max Verstappen made an amazing start and was in eighth place going into turn 1 from 13th on the grid. Valtteri Bottas passed Stroll for third place, whilst Felipe Massa and Max Verstappen made contact, with the latter suffering damage as well as a punctured tyre, and was not impressed at all by Massa, saying: "What the **** was he doing?". Meanwhile, Valtteri Bottas passed Esteban Ocon for second place, and Sebastian Vettel charged up from sixth into third place, passing Raikkonen, Stroll, and Ocon in the process. After 9 laps, the order was: Hamilton, Bottas, Vettel, Ocon, Stroll, Raikkonen, Massa, Perez, Ricciardo, and Magnussen. On lap 15, Raikkonen pitted in an attempt to gain an undercut on Ocon and Stroll. Ocon pitted a lap later, though he crucially re-emerged ahead of Raikkonen, and Stroll then pitted on the next lap, however it was an uncharacteristically slow stop by Williams' standards and he ended up re-emerging behind the Finn. After lap 25, the order was: Hamilton, Bottas, Vettel, Ricciardo, Perez, Ocon, Raikkonen, Stroll, Massa, and Vandoorne. The top 5 were all yet to stop, however. Raikkonen eventually overtook Ocon for fifth place. Jolyon Palmer retired with an issue with his car. Vettel was the first of the top 5 drivers to pit and emerged ahead of Raikkonen. Hamilton pitted on the following lap with Bottas pitting a lap later. Just a bit later, Stoffel Vandoorne retired with a lack of engine power. On lap 38, Ricciardo finally pitted onto super-soft tyres, and emerged just behind Raikkonen, and closed in rapidly on the Finn, and overtook him spectacularly going into turn 1 from a mile back under braking. At this point, he was 10.8s behind Vettel who was running third. Meanwhile, Ricciardo's team-mate Verstappen absolutely charged through to get up into tenth place. Ricciardo closed the gap to 4.3s to Sebastian Vettel with 3 laps to go, however, didn't quite have the pace to overtake him. On a different note, Fernando Alonso and Marcus Ericsson were both instructed to retire their car. Though, at the front, there was just no stopping the two Mercedes drivers, with Hamilton enjoying a Sunday drive, crossing the line 4.4s ahead of team-mate Valtteri Bottas to make it a Mercedes 1-2, with Vettel completing the podium finishing 36s behind winner Hamilton.

Classification:

Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes

Valtteri Bottas - Mercedes

Sebastian Vettel - Ferrari

Daniel Ricciardo - Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer

Kimi Raikkonen - Ferrari

Esteban Ocon - Force India-Mercedes

Lance Stroll - Williams-Mercedes

Felipe Massa - Williams-Mercedes

Sergio Perez - Force India-Mercedes

Max Verstappen - Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer

Kevin Magnussen - Haas-Ferrari

Daniil Kvyat - Toro Rosso

Nico Hulkenberg - Renault

Carlos Sainz - Toro Rosso

Romain Grosjean - Haas-Ferrari

Pascal Wehrlein - Sauber-Ferrari

Fernando Alonso - McLaren-Honda

Marcus Ericsson - Sauber-Ferrari

Note: Fernando Alonso and Marcus Ericsson both retired, but were classified having completed over 90% of the race distance.

Retired: Stoffel Vandoorne, Jolyon Palmer

World Championship standings:

Lewis Hamilton - 238 points

Sebastian Vettel - 235 points

Valtteri Bottas - 197 points

Daniel Ricciardo - 144 points

Kimi Raikkonen - 138 points

Max Verstappen - 68 points

Sergio Perez - 58 points

Esteban Ocon - 55 points

Carlos Sainz - 36 points

Nico Hulkenberg - 34 points

Felipe Massa - 31 points

Lance Stroll - 24 points

Romain Grosjean - 24 points

Kevin Magnussen - 11 points

Fernando Alonso - 10 points

Pascal Wehrlein - 5 points

Daniil Kvyat - 4 points

Stoffel Vandoorne - 1 point

Jolyon Palmer - 0 points

Marcus Ericsson - 0 points

Antonio Giovinazzi - 0 points

Constructors' Championship standings:

Mercedes - 435 points

Ferrari - 373 points

Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer - 212 points

Force India-Mercedes - 113 points

Williams-Mercedes - 55 points

Toro Rosso - 40 points

Haas-Ferrari - 35 points

Renault - 34 points

McLaren-Honda - 11 points

Sauber-Ferrari - 5 points


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