MONZA // Lewis Hamilton, flashing his famous ivory-white smile, strutted out onto the top step of the podium at the Italian Grand Prix last night like a Hollywood actor traversing a red carpet. Yet if his superiors at Mercedes-GP had been tasked with scripting yesterday’s race, even they would have struggled to conjure up a plot-line so perfect for their cause.
The German marque arrived just north of Milan for the final race of the European season with Hamilton and teammate Nico Rosberg – second and first in the world championship, respectively – under intense scrutiny.
Rosberg’s decision to deliberately crash into his title rival in Belgium last month had turned the focus directly onto the two drivers. Toto Wolff, the Mercedes’ team principal, warned both men that further collisions could result in one of them having their contract terminated.
With Hamilton securing pole position on Saturday and Rosberg lining up alongside him on the front row, all eyes were on how the two drivers might dance on the tarmac. Would Hamilton be looking for revenge? Would Rosberg dare fight for position? Would he be ordered to stay behind?
The answers to such questions never arrived, because what followed was by no means a thriller, but rather an Italian job well done. No sooner had the lights gone out than did Hamilton’s launch sequence fail.
“I’ve never really had that happen before,” he said. “I had no idea really what I was supposed to do, so I just floored it and hoped for the best.”
A system malfunction dropped him from pole to fourth and put three seconds and two cars between him and his title rival, but the 2008 world champion displayed his tenaciousness. He quickly recovered, passing the McLaren-Mercedes of Kevin Magnussen and overtaking Felipe Massa’s Williams to give him a clean run at Rosberg. By the 13th lap, the gap at the front had been scythed to 1.9 seconds, and by lap 19, Hamilton was within striking distance.
Rosberg had shown few signs of trouble, with his only error coming on the ninth lap, when he overran the start-finish straight and was forced to miss the chicane. With Hamilton bearing down on the German driver, though, and with both cars having just pitted for fresh tyres, the on-track drama appeared ready to be turned up a notch; something had to give.
Either two teammates would scrap under the Italian sun or Mercedes officials would have to order one of their drivers to lift his right foot. In the end neither – and both – occurred.
Hamilton was advised over the team radio to wait until the end to attack, but ignored it and immediately looked to fight Rosberg.
“My engineer said I should stay back, but knowing from experiences – and particularly this year – I knew it wasn’t the way forward,” Hamilton said. “So I chose another route.”
So did Rosberg, who buckled under the pressure. Having held the lead for the first 29 laps, the German driver overran the first chicane once more, forcing himself to weave slowly through a mazed run-off, allowing Hamilton to regain the lead and finally returning to the track slightly behind.
“Lewis was quick, coming from behind and I needed to up my pace,” Rosberg said. “As a result, I just went into a mistake. Definitely very disappointing.”
It was as clean a switching of positions as Mercedes could have dreamt of, epitomised by the image of Wolff trying to subdue a smirk. By the end of the race, which Hamilton closed out with ease, conspiracy theories were already swirling that Rosberg had made the mistake deliberately; a subtle, secret and ordered punishment for his admitted misdemeanour in Spa.
“I’ve heard about that, but what would be the reason for me to do something like that deliberately?” Rosberg said of yesterday’s innuendo. “There is no possible reason.”
Hamilton’s victory closed the gap at the top of the championship standings to 22 points, but it did not seem to improve relations between the teammates. There was no handshake on exiting their cars, and during the pre-podium wait, Rosberg elected to blank Hamilton and speak Italian with Massa, who claimed his first podium since May 2013.
When the Briton was asked on the podium whether he and Rosberg were friends again, he awkwardly replied, “Of course ... we are teammates ... and we always will be” as he stretched his arm clumsily around the back of Rosberg for a half-hearted hug.
The German driver, cast as a villain following his Machiavellian manoeuvre last month, was booed by the passionate race fans. “It’s not nice. I hope that with time, they can forgive and forget,” he said. “I have apologised and can’t do anything more than that.”
The conspiracy theorists will beg to differ. Either way, with six races still to be contested in 2014, the story script of Mercedes-GP has plenty twists yet to take.
gmeenaghan@thenational.ae
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