Formula One: Hamilton back on top

“For Lewis Hamilton, this felt like the moment that everything changed,” said Oliver Brown in The Daily Telegraph. At Monza, Formula One’s “temple of speed”, he won the Italian Grand Prix on Sunday, turning the world championship fight “on its head”. After spending almost all season behind Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, he has pulled off back-to-back victories and now leads the championship. Hamilton “stood supreme” all weekend: he took the 69th pole position of his career, overtaking the record set by Michael Schumacher, then led the race from start to finish. It was “a lonely affair” for Vettel, who came a distant third, behind Hamilton’s Mercedes teammate Valteri Bottas, and never looked like challenging the pair.

Truth be told, the race itself was something of “a dirge”, said Jonathan Mcevoy in the Daily Mail. And that’s because Hamilton’s heroics in the qualifying round turned the Grand Prix into a “formality”. He secured pole with one of the finest laps of his career: “in a final, nerve-jangling dart, he beat everyone else by 1.1 seconds”. It confirmed that Hamilton has been “rejuvenated” since he won July’s British Grand Prix. Finally, he seems to have “found equilibrium in his life” – achieving, in his own words, “a good balance of work time and play time”. And unlike last season, when he had a fractious relationship with his then-teammate Nico Rosberg, Hamilton is on much better terms with Bottas. But we shouldn’t make too much of this victory, said Andrew Benson on BBC Sport online. Mercedes were always likely to win at Monza. After all, their car thrives on that kind of high-speed track – whereas the Ferrari does much better on slower courses. Hamilton may be in the lead, but that doesn’t mean he has developed “unstoppable momentum”.