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Formula 1 Italian GP

Italian Grand Prix race day

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Bottas is back within 1.8s of Verstappen so that penalty hands the Mercedes third.
Crash
Verstappen is given a 5s time penalty for squeezing Bottas off the road.
Radio Comms
"We need to take care of our tyres, Kimi," says Ferrari. "We need to bring the car home."
Radio Comms
"Nice work," Mercedes tells Hamilton.
Hamilton immediately pulls out a 1.5s lead over Raikkonen.
Raikkonen tried to defend the inside but Hamilton could not be held back and this time there was no chance to retaliate.
Hamilton makes it through, he takes the lead on the outside into the Rettifilo with eight laps to go!
Hamilton is right with Raikkonen and goes for the lead...
Ericsson did 41 laps on a set of supersofts before finally diving into the pits. He drops to 16th, ahead of only the compromised Haas of Magnussen. Time for a late charge on fresh rubber from the Sauber driver.
Back to the Verstappen/Bottas incident - the Mercedes was alongside on the outside and they rubbed wheels. Bottas is adamant Verstappen squeezed him off. It's being investigated.
Raikkonen is now having to defend from Hamilton.
Crash
A replay shows that was actually contact between Verstappen and Bottas.
Crash
Bottas attacks Verstappen again but it fails and he cuts the chicane, losing ground as he has to navigate the corner markers in the escape road.
Pit stop
Hulkenberg pits.
The leaders are hitting heavy traffic with Hamilton 0.7s behind Raikkonen and 11 laps left.
Stroll has just passed Hulkenberg for 10th so no point staying out much longer for the Renault driver.
Radio Comms
"Tyres are falling off the cliff now" reports Hulkenberg.
Bottas is now right with Verstappen for third and has a look at the first corner.
Now the pitstops have cycled through, Grosjean is back up to sixth (and the 'Class B' lead) for Haas.
Radio Comms
Red Bull tells Verstappen it's been informed that he's "used up our joker" for jumping the first chicane by race director Charlie Whiting. That was from his earlier battle with Bottas.
Hamilton is getting big bites of DRS behind Raikkonen now, but he's not close enough early enough to try any moves on the pits straight. On lap 41 of 53 now.
Perez rejoins eighth, ahead of Hulkenberg, Sainz is 10th behind the sister Renault.
Vettel's pace at the moment is the same as Verstappen's in third and slower than Bottas in fourth, so it looks like Ferrari's title contender is heading for fifth.
Bottas has closed to within 1.7s of Verstappen for third.
Pit stop
Sainz and Perez both into the pits now.
Hamilton closed right in on Raikkonen under braking for the first chicane that time.
Now up to fifth again, Vettel is 13.4s behind Bottas with 14 laps to go. He's on supersofts, Bottas is on softs - but the Mercedes' tyres are much newer. Go on, Vettel, give it a punt.
Hulkenberg is 10th but his tyres are very old so he's unlikely to hang on to a point.
Ocon rejoins ninth.
Red Bull tells Verstappen not to worry about Vettel catching him before the end of the race as it thinks that's unlikely, but it does tells him to keep up the pace.
Replays show Vettel passed Perez into Ascari.
Ocon pits out of fifth place, so Vettel gains another place.
Raikkonen slightly faster than Hamilton on that lap, but there's nothing (well, 0.04s to be exact) between their pace.
Vettel is past Perez and back up into the top six now in the second Ferrari.

By: Geoff Creighton

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