Mercedes AMG Petronas
Lewis Hamilton says he was pleased to recover from a slow start at the Italian Grand Prix, which was caused by a technical problem in his Mercedes W05 Hybrid, to win at Monza.
Hamilton started from pole position but a minor mechanical gremlin left him helpless at the start and he dropped to fourth.
Hamilton nonetheless re-passed Kevin Magnussen and Felipe Massa, while he took the lead from Nico Rosberg when the German went wide at the Rettifilo chicane.
"It was a difficult race for whatever reason," he said. "At the start - there’s a button you press for the launch sequence and for the formation lap it didn't work, I thought 'no problem', but on the grid it didn’t work, very strange as it's never happened before.
"I tried to pull away as fast [as possible] but the RPM was all over the place, I managed to lose not too many places, we’ve never practiced like that so I had no idea what to do so I floored it and hoped for the best. I had a good fair battle with Felipe [Massa] through the corner."
Hamilton also confirmed that he opted to go against advice from his race engineer and push early in the second stint, rather than wait until the end of the race.
"The engineer said we should stay back but knowing from experience I knew that wasn’t the way forward so I chose another route," he said.
"The car felt good, closest that had been at that point, during the previous stint I knew when I was behind Nico on old tyres it was hard to stay with him, so I knew the best chance would be at the start of the stint so I took it."
