MOTORSPORT: Hamilton, Mercedes burst Ferrari bubble

Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes turned the tables on Ferrari at the Italian Grand Prix after the ‘home team’ locked out the front row in qualifying, with Kimi Raikkonen recording the fastest lap in Formula 1 history at an average speed of 263.587km/h.

In the race Hamilton outpaced Raikkonen, twice overtaking him despite the Flying Finn’s vintage form, while Ferrari’s main man Sebastian Vettel’s chances were shot at the fourth corner after contact with Hamilton that damaged his car and spun him around.

Defying the booing of Ferrari’s fanatical fans, the tifosi, Hamilton has stretched his world championship lead over Vettel from 17 to 30 points with seven races remaining.

It was another dud weekend for Australia’s Daniel Ricciardo, retiring for the sixth time this season and the fourth time in the past six races.

Ricciardo and Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen raced with Renault’s latest ‘Spec C’ power unit at Monza, and that initially seemed to be Ricciardo’s undoing just as he was nearing the top 10 in the race after starting from the rear of the field because of grid penalties incurred.

However, Renault later announced it had been a clutch problem that forced the carsales.com.au global ambassador – who will drive for its factory team next year – out.

Glancing at his mirrors after overtaking the Williams-Mercedes of Lance Stroll for 11th place Ricciardo noticed smoke.

“Honestly, looking at the whole year it’s been pretty frustrating,” Ricciardo said.

“I passed Stroll into turn one, then out of the corner I looked in the mirrors to see if I was clear of him. I couldn’t see that well and that’s when I realised there was smoke coming out of the back.

“I mentioned that straight away [on the radio] and they (Red Bull Racing crew) said stop.”

Verstappen finished third on the track but a five-second time penalty for nudging Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas off the circuit relegated the young Dutchman to fifth, behind Hamilton, Raikkonen, Bottas and Vettel, who clamoured his way back from last after an early stop for repairs because of his clash with Hamilton.

It was Hamilton’s sixth win of the season, and 68th of his career, and he said the tifosi’s negativity had “empowered” him.

It also was Mercedes’s fifth win in a row at Monza, where Ferrari hasn’t won since 2010, and Hamilton’s fifth victory there, equalling Michael Schumacher’s record.

Mercedes leads Ferrari by 25 points in the constructors’ championship, 415-390, with Red Bull third on 248.
In the driver standings, Hamilton has 256, Vettel 226, Raikkonen 164, Bottas 159, Verstappen 130 and Ricciardo 118.

Raikkonen’s podium was his 100th in F1 and he may have put up even more of a fight – he overtook Hamilton once - if not for his fading rear tyres.
Vettel wrongly tried to blame Hamilton for the early contact but it was the German who ran wide.

He said his Ferrari had been rendered “quite horrible to drive” after the incident.

Verstappen gave the stewards one of his customary sprays over his penalty, accusing them of “killing racing”.

American team Haas was briefly equal fourth in the constructors’ championship in just its third season, but dropped back to fifth after the disqualification of Romain Grosjean’s Ferrari-powered Haas car over an illegal floor.

McLaren’s departing superstar Fernando Alonso had yet another early retirement and will test an IndyCar in the US this week for the Andretti team.

The next F1 race is on September 16 on the streets of Singapore, which should suit Ricciardo’s Red Bull and the Ferraris better.

Will Power’s chances of a second IndyCar title this year are gone after a nightmare penultimate round, while Brisbane-born New Zealander Scott Dixon is poised for a fifth crown in the series.

Toowoomba’s Power briefly led today’s wild race in IndyCar’s return to Portland, Oregon, after the 54th pole position of his career in the American series but a gearbox problem and damage from hitting a tyre wall relegated him to 21st in the field of 25.

He was seven laps down at the end after a stop to repair damage to his Chevrolet-engined Dallara car.

“Man, it’s a tough sport,” Power said.

Marco Andretti’s car was launched into the air like Fernando Alonso’s McLaren at the Belgian Formula 1 Grand Prix a week earlier.

Fortunately Andretti didn’t hit the cockpit of any of the several other cars involved in the first-lap dust-up as IndyCar doesn’t yet have anything like F1’s ‘halo’ head protection that saved Charles Leclerc at Spa. However, Andretti crashed upside down but was uninjured.

Power, the 2014 IndyCar champion and winner of this year’s Indianapolis 500, will go to the series finale at Sonoma, California, in two weeks trailing Dixon by 97 points – 511 to 598.

While still mathematically ‘alive’ as Sonoma will be a double points race – with 100 for the win plus bonus points for pole position, leading at least one lap as well as for the most laps led – the only genuine challenger to Dixon is American Alex Rossi, who is 29 points behind him on 569.

Power’s best hope now is to be Team Penske’s top driver for the season.

His American teammate and reigning champion Josef Newgarden is level with him on 511 points after finishing 10th today at Portland, where Japan’s Takuma Sato scored the third victory of his IndyCar career after starting 20th.

Like Dixon and Rossi, who were fifth and eighth today, Sato has Honda power and is IndyCar’s eighth race winner this season.

Dixon won the Formula Holden Championship in 1998 – the major Australian open-wheeler title at that time – before his move to America, where he has won four IndyCar titles – in 2003, ’08, ’13 and ’15 – as well as the 2008 Indianapolis 500.

Dixon avoided serious damage in the first-lap incident today and later recovered from a drive-through penalty for a pit-speed violation to notch his 11th top-five finish this season.

Rossi had won two of the previous three rounds and been second in the other but he dropped three points on the Kiwi at Portland.