Relatively straight forward race. Sad to see Kimi had a botched race start.
And FIA managed to try to put some drama into a mediocre race.
FIA upholds Lewis Hamilton's Monza win after tyre investigation
http://www.espn.co.uk/f1/story/_/id/...-investigation
Quote:
The FIA has upheld Lewis Hamilton's Italian Grand Prix victory after an investigation into Mercedes' tyre pressures.
More to follow....
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Lewis Hamilton's Italian Grand Prix victory under investigation
http://www.espn.co.uk/f1/story/_/id/...-investigation
Lewis Hamilton won the Italian Grand Prix but faces a stewards investigation after his tyre pressures were found to be below the minimum level set by the FIA and tyre supplier Pirelli.
Hamilton won by 25 seconds from Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel, but will have to visit the stewards to find out whether the result will be allowed to stand or if he will face a penalty. Hamilton was told to up his pace in the closing laps by the Mercedes pit wall in case of a time penalty, but was not aware of the reason why at the time.
The FIA checked the tyre pressures on the left side of the front four cars on the grid ahead of the start of the race and found Hamilton's left-rear tyre pressure to be 0.3 PSI below the minimum pressure of 19.5 PSI set by Pirelli. The left-rear tyre on his Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg was found to be 1.1 PSI too low, but Rosberg's race ended two laps before the end when his engine let go while running third. Both Ferraris had pressures in compliance with the regulations.
"We don't understand it, to be honest," Mercedes technical boss Paddy Lowe said after the race. "All I know is we set our pressures fully supervised by the Pirelli engineer, he was perfectly happy with them, as they were set. We'll go and investigate."
The FIA informed the teams of the potential breach of the regulations one hour and four minutes into the race, which was when the Mercedes pit wall gave Hamilton the hurry up.
Asked about the pit radio message to his driver, Lowe added: "I'd call it an abundance of caution, because we haven't done anything wrong. We thought let's make a gap. We've been summoned to the stewards so we'll go there and explain it."
The issue of tyre pressures has been particularly sensitive since the Belgian Grand Prix when Vettel suffered a tyre failure in the final two laps of the race. As a result, Pirelli enforced pressures 1 PSI higher at Monza this year than normal and the FIA made a point of checking the pressures and temperatures of the tyres on the front four cars of the grid five minutes before the start.
Before the post-race drama, the Italian Grand Prix had been a fairly dull affair. Ferrari's hopes of causing an upset by beating Mercedes were halved when Kimi Raikkonen's car kicked into anti-stall at the start and he dropped from second on the grid to last place by the first corner. Vettel quickly realised the difficulty of the task of keeping up with Hamilton within a handful of laps had dropped over five seconds off the Mercedes. The two Williamses of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas were third and fourth ahead of Rosberg, who made a slow start and dropped to sixth.
Running a five-race old engine after a problem with his new Monza power unit on Saturday, Rosberg struggled to match the two Williamses for straight-line speed and instead made an early pit stop on lap 18 to gain an advantage on fresh tyres. Once the pit stops had panned out Rosberg emerged comfortably in front of Massa and Bottas and set about closing the gap to Vettel. He got within 1.2s when his engine let go with a lick of yellow flame from the exhaust, much to the delight of the Tifosi lining the circuit.
That promoted Massa back up to third but he had to hold off Bottas at the end. The pair were engaged in a thrilling battle on the final lap as Bottas attacked his team-mate, but ultimately came up 0.3s shy as they crossed the line. Raikkonen battled his way from last place back up to fifth with a series of bold overtaking manoeuvres that showed the strength of the updated Ferrari power unit. at Monza Sergio Perez finished sixth ahead of Force India team-mate Nico Hulkenberg, Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo and Sauber's Marcus Ericsson, who picked up the final point on offer in tenth.
If Hamilton's result stands he will take a 53-point lead in the drivers' championship over team-mate Rosberg, giving him the safety net of being able to retire twice and still lead the title race.