Convincing win for Lewis Hamilton despite controversy

IN his 50^th competitive drive for Mercedes, the world champion led from start to finish to win the Italian Grand Prix.

This was not the most exciting of races as he was 20 seconds in front of his nearest rival Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari for most of the latter part of the race, with Felipe Massa finishing third. The real controversy came on lap 47 of 53 when a voice came over his radio with the instruction: “We need some good lap times now Lewis, no need to ask questions. We will explain it at the end.”

Hamilton responded positively, sped up and finished the race in first position, winning by 25 seconds and then commented with some annoyance: “I have to say those last few laps were not cool.”

This wasn’t to be the end of the matter as an enquiry immediately took place as to whether his car was being driven with illegal tyre pressure possibly caused by a slow puncture. This would explain the decision by the team to instruct him to speed up as had there been a negative decision and a time penalty, they wanted to make sure that he would still be declared the winner.

With his team mate Nico Rosberg and rival in the standings having to pull out of the race in lap 51 when his engine caught fire, Hamilton is 53 points of ahead in the standings and the Mercedes team is 181 points ahead of second place Ferrari.

With seven races left in the 2015 Formula 1 calendar, although nothing is certain, it does look as if Hamilton and Mercedes will end up as champions.