Hamilton wins Italian GP

Britain’S Lewis Hamilton took a crucial victory in the Italian Grand Prix after Nico Rosberg made a mistake under pressure from his Mercedes team-mate.Hamilton (29) fought back after a poor start from pole position, caused by a glitch in his start procedure, dropped him to fourth early on.

He had just closed to within a second of his sister Mercedes when the German ran wide at the first chicane.

The victory reduces Hamilton’s deficit in the title race to 22 points.

Just as importantly, it will be a significant psychological boost to Hamilton and a corresponding blow to Rosberg (29). The German was already under the spotlight after being criticised by his team for causing a collision between the two at the previous race in Belgium.

The race seemed to be falling into Rosberg’s lap as Hamilton’s car was slow away from pole position and he was swamped by the field, falling behind his team-mate, McLaren’s Kevin Magnussen and Williams’s Felipe Massa. Mercedes reset Hamilton’s engine systems remotely and he was soon pushing hard to make up for lost ground.

He took advantage of Massa, passing Magnussen at the second chicane on lap five to grab third from the Dane at the first Lesmo corner on lap five.

And five laps later Hamilton pulled a superb move on Massa, holding the outside line at the first chicane and grabbing the place into the second, left-handed part. At that point, Hamilton was 2,2 seconds behind Rosberg and he inched closer as they traded lap times to be 1,3 seconds behind when Rosberg made his only pit stop on lap 24, his position as the lead car giving him priority on pit-stop timing.

Hamilton was 1,8 seconds behind when he rejoined after his own stop a lap later. He was warned by his engineer that the “race will be at the end – look after your tyres” but chose to ignore the advice, instead making his move when his tyres were in their best condition.

He cut into Rosberg’s lead, reducing it from 1,8 seconds on lap 26, to 1,3 a lap later and then 0,7 with a new fastest lap as they crossed the line at the end of lap 28.

A few hundred metres later, Rosberg braked too late into the first chicane and was forced to take to the escape road, Hamilton taking the lead as his team-mate negotiated the bollards before rejoining the track.

Hamilton extended his lead in measured but inexorable fashion over the next few laps to four seconds, where it stabilised until the Englishman locked up a front tyre going into the first chicane with three laps to go.

That cost him half a second but Hamilton had everything under control to take his sixth and arguably most important win of the year. — BBC Sport.