Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton took the outright championship lead for the first time this season with a dominant victory in the Italian Grand Prix.
A day after breaking the all-time record for pole positions, Hamilton was in total control at Monza, leading team-mate Valtteri Bottas to a one-two.
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was third and is three points behind Hamilton.
It is a crucial milestone for Hamilton as F1 next heads to Singapore, where Ferrari are expected to dominate.
The victory was Hamilton’s sixth of the season – Vettel has only four – and it capped a perfect weekend for him.
He scored a brilliant pole in treacherous wet conditions on Saturday – more than a second clear of the next fastest driver – to take his tally to 69, one more than Ferrari legend Michael Schumacher.
Hamilton’s victory was among the most straightforward of the season. He fought off a brief challenge from Williams driver Lance Stroll, a remarkable second on the grid, on the run down to the first corner and disappeared into a race of his own.
“The team did an amazing job. Valtteri did a great job. Mercedes power is better than Ferrari power so that’s one thing,” Hamilton said, as he was booed by the Tifosi during the podium interviews.
The fight was all behind him, as Bottas and the Ferrari drivers set about fighting up from their unusually low grid positions.
The Finn, who started sixth, was up to fourth on the first lap behind Hamilton, Force India’s Esteban Ocon, another star of qualifying, and Stroll, who dropped a place in a tussle at the first corner.
Bottas got Stroll into Turn One on lap three, Ocon in the same place a lap later, to give Mercedes total control of the race, which they never surrendered. BBC Sport
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