MOTORSPORT: Wham bam, a Grand Slam

Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes-Benzs strengthened their grips on this year’s Formula One world titles with a 'Grand Slam' at the Italian Grand Prix amid a tyre controversy for which at least one leading rival felt they should have been disqualified.

Despite F1’s myriad ailments, the 12th round of the world championship at Monza proved there is still an enormous passion for it, as the British GP at Silverstone had two months earlier.

Rallycross continues its boom overseas too, with a sell-out 75,000 at the ninth round of its world championship at Loheac in France, on Peugeot’s front door – and where a Peugeot 208 won.

It was driven by Swede Timmy Hansen, who beat Norway’s reigning world champion and series leader Petter Solberg in a Citroen DS3 and Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Dubourg in a Citroen C4.

It was a lower-key revival of rallycross in Australia at the first round of the Extreme championship at Brisbane’s Lakeside Park, where fields were thin but one of the great talents of Australian motorsport, South Australian horseman Steve Glenney, in a Mitsubishi Evo downed the Ford Fiesta Super Lite driven by Alister McRae.

And there has been a tragic reminder – in the week leading up to Rally Australia at Coffs Harbour – of the dangers of motorsport, and especially spectating in dangerous places, with six fans (including a pregnant woman) dead and 16 injured after a Peugeot 206 ran off the road at a national rally in Spain.

However, Austrian teenager Ferdinand Habsburg miraculously escaped injury when his car catapulted metres into the air during a Formula Renault 2.0-litre race at Britain’s Silverstone circuit.

A beautiful set of numbers, except a couple of tyre pressures
Lewis Hamilton was fastest in all three practice sessions and all three segments of qualifying at the Italian GP, then led the race from start to finish and set the fastest lap.

That is considered a 'Grand Slam' in F1 – and it was only the second time Hamilton had done it.

Jim Clark, the late Scottish great of the 1960s still considered by some to have been the finest GP driver of all, did it eight times in a career of just 72 races.

Sebastian Vettel, second to Hamilton at Monza in a Ferrari, did it four times on the way to four world titles with Red Bull Racing.

Hamilton has now won seven times this season, three times at Monza, has a career total of 40 victories – just one short of his idol, the late Brazilian Ayrton Senna, and Vettel – and is 53 points clear of his German teammate Nico Rosberg as he closes on his third world title.

His Monza triumph came with the updated power unit in the Mercedes W06, while lots went wrong for Rosberg, who was forced to use an older unit that already had done five races and saw it go up in flames a couple of laps from the chequered flag.

All cars were required to run higher tyre pressures at Monza after the problems two weeks earlier at Spa in Belgium, where Vettel’s right rear tyre exploded late in the race.

Checks on the Monza grid five minutes before the start found the left rears of Hamilton and Rosberg respectively to be 0.3 and 1.1 pounds per square inch (psi) below what they should have been.

Mercedes team chiefs only learned of that infringement 15 minutes before the end of the race, which prompted them to instruct Hamilton over the radio to stretch his lead to more than 25 seconds in case he incurred a time penalty that might have been applied after the chequered flag.

He subsequently beat Vettel by 25.042 seconds, but stewards have cleared Mercedes of any wrongdoing with its tyres.

Its defence was that the pressures on the two factory cars were checked, under the supervision of the Pirelli engineer assigned to the team, when they were fitted to the W06s and complied.

Mercedes F1 team principal Toto Wolff has called on the governing Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) to clarify when the check should be done.

However, Pat Symonds, head of engineering at the Mercedes-powered Williams team which had its best race of the season, with Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas third and fourth and just 0.3 seconds apart at the finish, was adamant that Hamilton and the factory Mercedes team should have been disqualified.

Wolff has vigorously denied any attempt by Mercedes to cheat.

But Ricciardo made his way through the field to eighth place, albeit it a lap down.

“It was a great result for the team (Red Bull Racing) considering where we started and the (high-speed) characteristics of this track”.

“It was sweet taking that eighth place on the last lap from Ericsson (Sauber’s Swedish driver Marcus Ericsson).

“I am very happy with the chassis, the car was handling really well, and we were able to fight with a Ferrari and a Mercedes-powered car on a track where we lost out a lot on the straights.

“It wasn’t an easy weekend for us, but I think the race was positive and the energy in the team is good.

“I will celebrate with one more pizza.”

Vettel said that runner-up, in front of Ferrari’s tifosi fans, was “the best second place I’ve ever had”.

He had been outqualified by teammate Kimi Raikkonen, who started on the front row for the first time in more than two years but botched his start and immediately dropped to last – but recovered to finish fifth.

Rosberg failed to finish for the first time this season and conceded that overhauling Hamilton had become a lot harder. Seven races remain – the next the night race in Singapore on September 20 – and Hamilton can take the title without winning any of them.

Force India – another team with Mercedes power – scored a season-high 14 points with Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg sixth and seventh.

However, Lotus – already under enormous financial pressure -- saw the cars of Romain Groshean and Pastor Maldonado out soon after the start.

But most of that boast was sadly contradicted at Monza, where Arai refused to answer whether he had apologised to the McLaren team’s world champion drivers, Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button, for the V6 hybrids they have had to labour with in the Japanese company’s return to F1 this season.

The BBC’s chief F1 writer, Andrew Benson, who consistently sets the pace in reporting on such matters, again had some alarming figures at the weekend.

“Insiders say that the Honda at its best is at least 100hp down on the Mercedes – and that the hybrid element of the power unit, which accounts for 160-180hp of the total power of the engine, runs out of boost part way down all but the shortest straights,” Benson reported.

“That means the McLaren-Honda is lagging nearly 300hp behind the Mercedes for a significant proportion of the straights on the Monza track, and is by some measure the worst engine in F1.”

Arai has admitted that the deployment of the hybrid system is Honda’s biggest problem but told Benson: “We have already found what is the weak point of the power unit and we have already started work on it.”

While Button was despondent at another finish out of the points, in 14th, Alonso was more upbeat despite his sixth non-finish of the season – his most since his 2001 debut season with lowly Minardi.

“This is a work in progress. It is frustrating for everyone in the team, but it is a period we have to through together. We are moving in the right direction,” the Spaniard said.

Formula One World Championship driver standings after 12 of 19 rounds: 1. Lewis Hamilton (Great Britain, Mercedes) 252 points; 2. Nico Rosberg (Germany, Mercedes) 199; 3. Sebastian Vettel (Germany, Ferrari) 178; 4. Felipe Massa (Brazil) Williams 97; 5. Kimi Raikkonen (Finland, Ferrari) 92; 6. Valtteri Bottas (Finland, Williams) 91; 7. Daniil Kvyat (Russia, Red Bull-Renault) 58; 8. Daniel Ricciardo (Australia, Red Bull-Renault) 55; 9. Romain Grosjean (France, Lotus-Mercedes) 38; 10. Sergio Perez (Mexico, Force India-Mercedes) 33; 11. Nico Huelkenberg (Germany, Force India-Mercedes) 30; 12.  Max Verstappen (Netherlands, Toro Rosso-Renault) 26; 13. Felipe Nasr (Brazil, Sauber-Ferrari) 16; 14. Pastor Maldonado (Venezuela, Lotus-Mercedes) 12; 15. Fernando Alonso (Spain, McLaren=Honda) 11; 16. Carlos Sainz Junior (Spain, Toro Rosso-Renault)   9; 17. Marcus Ericsson (Sweden, Sauber-Ferrari) 9; 18. Jenson Button (GB, McLaren-Honda) 6.

F1 constructor standings: 1. Mercedes 451 points; 2. Ferrari 270; 3. Williams-Mercedes 188; 4. Red Bull-Renault 113; 5. Force India-Mercedes 63; 6. Lotus-Mercedes 50; 7. Toro Rosso-Renault 35; 8. Sauber-Ferrari 25; 9. McLaren 17.