Italian GP: Mercedes’ Hamilton takes pole over Rosberg
Ryan Joseph Ramos September 6, 2014
Lewis Hamilton wants to bounce back, and what better way than by edging out Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 teammate Nico Rosberg for pole position? Hamilton will start at the head of the pack at the 2014 Italian Grand Prix, leading a Mercedes front row in what should be another tight contest between the two frontrunners.
This is the 12th pole position for Mercedes out of the 13 races so far this season, although it’s been a while since Hamilton last sat in P1 to start a race. Rosberg had six out of the last seven pole positions, so it’s nice to see Hamilton get this pole, especially after the incident in Belgium that caused quite a stir within the team and cost Hamilton considerable ground in the drivers’ championship race as he was forced to retire following contact initiated by Rosberg.
In the past couple of weeks, much attention was put on the incident and how it would impact the team, but it looks like the drivers are eager to move on and go all out once again this weekend. That certainly showed in practice, where the Mercedes cars were constantly the fastest in pace, and Rosberg’s qualifying time was only behind Hamilton’s by a small margin – 1:24.600 to 1:24.560. Rosberg was a bit limited in qualifying because of a gearbox problem.
Interestingly, out of the top 10 qualifiers for the 2014 Italian Grand Prix, seven ran on Mercedes power units. Here are the top 10 qualifiers in order:
P1: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG
P2: Nico Rosberg, Mercedes AMG
P3: Valtteri Bottas, Williams-Mercedes
P4: Felipe Massa, Williams-Mercedes
P5: Kevin Magnussen, McLaren-Mercedes
P6: Jenson Button, McLaren-Mercedes
P7: Fernando Alonso, Ferrari
P8: Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull
P9: Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull
P10: Sergio Perez, Force India-Mercedes
No doubt we’ll see another big battle between the Mercedes cars at tomorrow’s race. They’re free to race against each other, and we hope it gets exciting without there having to be another unfortunate incident. When Rosberg was asked what would happen at one of the tight chicanes in case he found himself toe-to-toe with Hamilton once again, Rosberg said he could not answer.
“The message [according to Mercedes] is that we keep on racing,” said the German driver. “Every situation is different.”
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