MONZA, Italy -- Nico Rosberg claimed a comfortable second victory in as many weeks after leading Lewis Hamilton across the line at the Italian Grand Prix.
The race looked set to be a straight fight between the Mercedes teammates and title rivals, but a slow getaway by Hamilton at the start meant Rosberg led into Turn 1. Hamilton finished the first lap in sixth position and saw his hopes of a comeback slip away in the opening ten laps after getting stuck behind Valtteri Bottas.
With his main rival out of the equation, Rosberg turned in a faultless drive to win, cutting Hamilton's championship lead to just two points. The huge pace advantage of Mercedes and the two-stop strategies of the Ferrari pair meant Hamilton eventually had a fairly routine drive back to second, but it will be a disappointing result for the world champion after an utterly dominant weekend up until Sunday afternoon.
Sebastian Vettel rounded off the podium to the delight of the crowd, beating teammate Kimi Raikkonen to a place on the final step. Daniel Ricciardo beat Valtteri Bottas to fifth position, with the Finn finishing ahead of Max Verstappen in the other Red Bull. Sergio Perez, Felipe Massa and Nico Hulkenberg rounded off the top ten to keep Williams and Force India's fight for fourth a close one.
Story of the race
Hamilton appeared to get bogged down off the line, getting passed by both Ferraris, Bottas and Ricciardo into Turn 1. Though he soon dispatched Ricciardo at Curva Grande he had difficulty getting past Bottas, equipped with a Williams with a high straight-line speed and with super-soft tyres. After several laps of holding back to look after his tyres Hamilton got by on lap 10.
Hamilton did not need to pass both Ferraris on track as the red cars both pitted in front of him, happy to stick to a two-stop strategy to keep Bottas' Williams at bay. He emerged from his only stop behind both Ferrari drivers but was soon released back into second position when they made their final stops. Despite clearly pushing in the final stint and running deep at the first chicane Hamilton never came close to even challenging Rosberg for the lead out in front.
The Ferrari drivers were in a race of their own for third and fourth, which was settled when Vettel emerged from his second stop marginally ahead of the Finn. Behind that, Daniel Ricciardo caught and passed Valtteri Bottas for fifth late on after taking on an alternate strategy. Both men took super-soft and then soft for their opening two stints, but while Bottas took on softs at his final stint Ricciardo moved onto the super-softs. That helped him catch and pass the Finn in the closing stages.
Max Verstappen finished as he qualified, though he nearly came to blows with Sergio Perez late on as the pair diced for seventh at the Roggia chicane. Perez settled for eighth, while Felipe Massa fought back from 11th to split Perez and Hulkenberg for ninth.
Romain Grosjean finished a lap down in 11th, ahead of Jenson Button in 12th. Esteban Gutierrez failed to build on his impressive qualifying performance with a poor start from 10th which saw him running at the back of the field after one corner, meaning his wait for a first point of 2016 continues. Fernando Alonso finished a frustrating afternoon in 14th -- the Spaniard had seemed confused about McLaren's strategy at mid distance, before appearing to laugh at a radio message that he was racing Gutierrez late in the race.
Carlos Sainz, Marcus Ericsson and Kevin Magnussen took the next positions, while Manor rookie Esteban Ocon recorded his first F1 finish, albeit two laps down in 18th. Daniil Kvyat's horrible run of bad luck continued as he retired on lap 36. Pascal Wehrlein pulled over to retire eight laps earlier.
Jolyon Palmer and Felipe Nasr were early retirements after tangling on the second lap. Dicing for position, Nasr appeared to squeeze Palmer on the exit of Turn 2 and the two men made contact. Both men retired soon afterwards, though Nasr soon had to return to the race in order to pit and serve a five-second penalty for the incident so it did not carry over to the next race in