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Thirty seconds before the start of Sunday’s F1 Italian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton was doing fine. Great, actually. He dominated Saturday qualifying, earning pole position. His goatee was penciled-in convincingly, his gold chain(s) polished exquisitely—our defending F1 World Champion, in peak form. Then the lights went out, and everything went to shit.
Hamilton faltered, then bogged. His car moved some, though not very quickly. The grid behind him parted, then began overtaking; entering Turn 1, he’d already fallen back to sixth place. Worse still, his Mercedes-AMG teammate, Nico Rosberg, had jumped out into first. The German eventually won the race. Hamilton climbed back to finish second, but his championship lead is now a less-than-#blessed two points.
The crowd in Monza showed love for Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Räikkönen, who netted Ferrari third and fourth place, respectively. Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo took fifth, after putting these mean on Valtteri Bottas’ Williams car…
…and celebrating like a silly Aussie.
Ricciardo’s teammate, Max Verstappen, finished seventh, followed by Sergio Perez of Force India. Felipe Massa’s Williams car was ninth. Nico Hulkenberg rounded out the top-ten, securing the double-points finish for Force India. Fernando Alonso, who is bored as hell and just wants to go home, turned in the race’s fastest lap for McLaren-Honda.
So ends the European leg of the 2016 F1 season. Next up: Singapore, September 16-18.
