A day after breaking the all-time record for pole positions, Hamilton was in total control at Monza, leading team-mate Valtteri Bottas to a one-two.
Hamilton had taken Michael Schumacher’s record of pole positions with his 69th on Saturday, a magnificent run at the death in treacherous wet conditions, and he backed it up by ensuring he took maximum points with an almost perfect run from pole to flag. His car was expected to be suited to the low downforce, high-speed flow of the Autodromo Nazionale and he made the most of it.
It is the three-times world champion’s sixth win of the season and his 59th career victory. He now leads Vettel by three points, with 238 to 235. Hamilton had tied for the lead with Vettel at the second round in China but the German has been at the top of the table since then.
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was third and is three points behind Hamilton.
It is a crucial milestone for Hamilton as F1 next heads to Singapore, where Ferrari are expected to dominate.
The victory was Hamilton’s sixth of the season – Vettel has only four – and it capped a perfect weekend for him.
- Mercedes have ‘edge’ after ‘bad day’ for Ferrari – Vettel
- How Hamilton broke pole record – in numbers
- Listen as Hamilton as booed by Tifosi
He scored a brilliant pole in treacherous wet conditions on Saturday – more than a second clear of the next fastest driver – to take his tally to 69, one more than Ferrari legend Michael Schumacher.
Hamilton’s victory was among the most straightforward of the season. He fought off a brief challenge from Williams driver Lance Stroll, a remarkable second on the grid, on the run down to the first corner and disappeared into a race of his own.
“The team did an amazing job. Valtteri did a great job. Mercedes power is better than Ferrari power so that’s one thing,” Hamilton said, as he was booed by the Tifosi during the podium interviews.
The fight was all behind him, as Bottas and the Ferrari drivers set about fighting up from their unusually low grid positions.
Bottas got Stroll into Turn One on lap three, Ocon in the same place a lap later, to give Mercedes total control of the race, which they never surrendered.
Vettel in a rearguard fight
Vettel limited the damage to his title hopes as much as was possible in the circumstances, passing team-mate Kimi Raikkonen around the outside into the first Lesmo on lap three, Stroll a couple of laps later before picking off Ocon into Turn One on lap eight.
The German, though, was no match for the Mercedes at Ferrari’s home race – generally dropping at least half a second a lap – and his focus in the second part of the race became holding off Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo.
The Australian, who qualified third but started 16th after being given a grid penalty for using too many engine parts this season, put in a brilliant recovery from his lowly grid position.
He picked his way through the slower cars in the first part of the race, pulling off a series of his trademark aggressive overtaking moves, and ran a long first stint to give himself fresher tyres for the final stint than the Ferraris ahead of him.
Ricciardo dived brilliantly inside Raikkonen from a long way back at the first chicane with 12 laps to go and began to set off after Vettel, who was just over 11 seconds ahead.
Initially, he began to close at a second a lap, but as the edge went from his tyres, his advantage reduced and Vettel crossed the line four seconds ahead.
Vettel later told his team over the radio that he had gone off track at one point and felt “something was wrong” afterwards, explaining part of his lack of pace.
“My start was not so good – I had quite a lot of wheel spin and we didn’t quite have the pace of the leading two cars but seeing the people and having that support was amazing,” Vettel said afterwards.
“We have a very strong car and will have a very strong end of the season.”
Ricciardo’s team-mate Max Verstappen got up from 13th on the grid – also victim of a penalty after qualifying second in the wet – to be eighth on the first lap.
But he wrecked his race by tangling with Williams driver Felipe Massa on the second lap, damaging his front wing and getting a puncture and rejoined last.
Stroll and Ocon inevitably slipped back behind faster cars from their superb starting positions, earned with starring drives in the wet.
But both drove solid and strong races to finish sixth and seventh, the Canadian fending off team-mate Felipe Massa for seventh place on the last lap, as the pair also fended off the second Force India of Sergio Perez.
| Leaderboard – Final | Points | Time/Lag | Avg. mph | |
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| 1 |
 |
25 | 1:15:32.312 | 243.626 |
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| 2 |
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18 | +4.471Â Sec | 243.386 |
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| 3 |
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15 | +36.317Â Sec | 241.69 |
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| 4 |
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12 | +40.335Â Sec | 241.477 |
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| 5 |
|
10 | +1:00.082Â Sec | 240.439 |
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Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton MBE (born 7 January 1985) is a British racing driver who races in Formula One for the Mercedes AMG Petronas team. A three-time Formula One World Champion, he is often considered the best driver of his generation and widely regarded as one of the greatest Formula One drivers in the history of the sport.[note 1] He won his first World Championship title with McLaren in 2008 before moving to Mercedes, where he won back-to-back titles in 2014 and 2015. Hamilton has more race victories than any other British driver in the history of Formula One (59), and holds records for the all-time most career points (2,485), the most wins at different circuits (24), the all-time most pole positions (69), as well as achieving the joint-most podium finishes in a season(17). Hamilton is also the only driver to have won at least one Grand Prix in every season he has competed in.
Born and raised in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, Hamilton’s interest in racing started when his father bought him a radio-controlled car when he was six. He was signed to McLaren’s young driver support programme in 1998, after he approached McLaren team principal Ron Dennis at an awards ceremony three years earlier and said “one day I want to be racing your cars”. After winning the British Formula Renault, Formula Three Euroseries, and GP2 championships on his way up the racing career ladder, he made his Formula One debut twelve years after his initial encounter with Dennis, driving for McLaren in 2007. Coming from a mixed background, with a black father and white mother, Hamilton is the first and only black driver to race in Formula One.
Two successful seasons followed as Hamilton won his second and third titles. Hamilton won 11 races in 2014, in a closely fought championship battle with Nico Rosberg, decided in the final race of the season, where Hamilton secured his second World Championship title by winning the race. The next season saw Hamilton seal his third World Championship title with 3 races remaining, in a season where he won 10 races and finished on the podium a record-tying 17 times and matched his hero, Ayrton Senna‘s, three World Championships. In 2016, Hamilton set the record for the most wins in a season without winning the World Championship, winning 10 times as he finished runner-up to Nico Rosberg by 5 points. His 59 Grand Prix victories is the second highest of all-time, behind onlyMichael Schumacher at 91.
