Hamilton was on pole and anyone who has seen the Britain drive, would have taken it for granted that he will not give up his place till the end of the race. But, as the red lights went off, Hamilton was overtaken by three cars one after the other and the first corner saw himself drop to fourth place.
However, he recovered from a poor start to win the Italian Grand Prix as Nico Rosberg made a mistake while leading the race. After recovering to second place Hamilton closed in rapidly after his one and only pit stop, with Rosberg running straight on at Turn 1 to hand Hamilton a lead which he was not willing to give back to Rosberg without a fight.
Rosberg consolidated second position and eventually finished 3.1s behind Hamilton as his championship advantage was reduced to 22 points. Felipe Massa took his first podium finish for Williams in third place, with team-mate Valtteri Bottas in fourth place and move Williams ahead of Ferrari as Fernando Alonso retired.
It was Alonso's first retirement in 86 races which says a lot about not only the driver but also the team. Alonso's retirement however, did dampen the hopes of the home crowd which was eager to see a Ferrari driver on the podium. Daniel Ricciardo climbed back through the field to finish fifth, 10 seconds ahead of team-mate Sebastian Vettel, who was suffering from lack of pace thanks to old tyres. Sergio Perez was seventh after an impressive race ahead of Jenson Button, Kimi Raikkonen and Kevin Magnussen - who was penalised and had five seconds added to his race time having crossed the line in P7.
With Rosberg's Championship lead reduced to 22 points now Hamilton will be looking to take advantage in the next race and zoom past his team-mate to take the lead in the Driver's Championship. All eyes now at the Singapore Grand Prix to see what transpires.
