MONZA, Italy-- Lewis Hamilton battled back from a troubled start to win the Italian Grand Prix on Sunday after Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg cracked under pressure and saw his Formula One championship lead cut to 22 points.
Rosberg, whose 29th lap mistake at the first chicane cost him the lead and the race, finished second as dominant Mercedes celebrated a first one-two since Austria in June and their seventh in 13 races.
Brazilian Felipe Massa was third for Williams in his first podium appearance since May 2013.
Rosberg, who now has 238 points to Hamilton's 216 with six races remaining after the end of the European part of the season, recognised his error.
"It's a terrible feeling to lose the lead like that but in the end Lewis was really quick in the whole race. He came like a rocket and I had to push and I made the mistake," he said.
With the sport taking a deep breath as the rivals lined up together on the front row, two weeks after they had collided in Belgium on the second lap, the start provided immediate drama.
Hamilton had taken pole position for the first time since May but problems with the car's start controls left him struggling to get away. He was fourth into the first corner as Rosberg led untroubled but kept his cool.
"I'm quite grateful today that I didn't lose it, I didn't end up crashing in the first corner, I didn't end up touching anyone, I didn't end up locking or anything like that. I managed to keep my composure," he said.
It was the start of a thrilling chase, with the 2008 world champion hunting down his quarry and seizing the lead when Rosberg missed the chicane.
The Briton had earlier shunned advice from his race engineer to back off and save tyres for a later attack and it proved the right approach.
The two crossed the finish line 3.1 seconds apart, with Hamilton celebrating his first win since Britain in July. It was his sixth of the season and 28th of his career, taking him ahead of triple champion Jackie Stewart in the all-time lists.
Difficult Race
"It was a difficult race," said Hamilton. "For whatever reason, at the start the button didn't press which engages the launch sequence.
"For the formation lap it didn't work and when I got to the grid and put it on again, again it didn't work. It was very strange. I've never really had that happen before."
In a sport full of conspiracy theorists, Rosberg and team bosses ridiculed a suggestion that he might have been ordered to cede place to Hamilton as a result of what happened in Spa.
"I've heard about that, but what would be the reason for me to do something like that deliberately? There is no possible reason," he said, explaining that he had missed the chicane to avoid locking up and 'flat-spotting' a tyre - which would have forced an extra pitstop and a lot of lost time.
Massa's podium came on Brazilian independence day and after the team had announced the former Ferrari driver was staying for 2015 along with Valtteri Bottas.
The points, at the fastest track on the calendar, meant Williams leapfrogged Ferrari into third place.
"I hope really we can get this third place in the Constructors' Championship. It would be fantastic for the whole team. I'm so happy to be on the podium here in this amazing place that I really love," said Massa.
In the absence of their current Ferrari heroes, the passionate home crowd welcomed Massa onto the podium with cheers as they spilled out in a vast red wave onto the finish straight.
Rosberg, blamed by his own team for the second lap Spa collision that led to Hamilton's retirement from that race, was booed for the second grand prix in a row.
Massa's Finnish team mate Bottas was fourth following another impressive day of overtaking after he had dropped from the second row to 10th at the end of the first lap.
Ferrari's Fernando Alonso retired from his team's home race on lap 29 with a failure in the car's energy recovery system, his first mechanical retirement in 86 races, while Kimi Raikkonen finished ninth.
The Finn crossed the line 10th but moved up after McLaren's Kevin Magnussen was penalised for forcing Bottas off.
Until Sunday, Alonso was the only driver to have scored points in every race this season.
Australian Daniel Ricciardo, winner of the two previous races, had another brilliant race for Red Bull and finished fifth after some breathtaking overtaking moves including one on four times champion team mate Sebastian Vettel who was sixth.
Mexican Sergio Perez came seventh for Force India after a wheel-to-wheel battle with McLaren's Jenson Button in eighth. The championship now heads east to Singapore and Japan.
BRUSSELS-- American Justin Gatlin proved on Friday he is the speed king for 2014 with a sprint double victory at the Diamond League finals in Brussels to put him firmly on course to complete the year without defeat.
Gatlin, unbeaten in 16 races coming into the finals in Brussels, set a personal and season's best time in a strong 100 metres and followed that up an hour later by destroying his rivals in the 200 metres.
If he wins his final race in Italy's Rieti on Sunday, he would become the first male sprinter to go through an entire season unbeaten since Usain Bolt in 2009, taking full advantage of the Olympic and world champion's exceptionally lean season.
In the 100 metres, Gatlin flew out of the blocks and crossed the line in 9.77 seconds, metres ahead of a strong field, all of them sub-10 seconds men.
Fellow American Mike Rogers was second in 9.93 and Jamaica's Asafa Powell third in 9.95. Gatlin's defeat of Rogers also made him the official 2014 Diamond League champion for the distance.
Gatlin, whose last defeat was his fourth-place finish a year ago in Brussels, took to the track again an hour later, destroying an arguably weaker 200 metres field.
His 19.71 seconds was three-hundredths of a second outside the season and personal best he set in Monaco in July. Qatar's Femi Ogunode was a distant second, several metres back in 20.15.
The 32-year-old Gatlin, who won Olympic gold for the 100 metres in 2004 and was world champion at both 100 and 200 metres in 2005, served a four-year doping ban from 2006-2010, but said he was getting better with age.
He was second behind Bolt in last year's world championships and said he wanted to challenge the Jamaican next season.
"Why not? It's not just one lane on the track when it comes to the 100 metres or any other event," he told reporters.
"I feel the world wants to see a good rivalry... That's what track and field is all about."
Bolt had won the 100 metres in Brussels for the last three years but was absent from Friday's season-concluding event after a poor season by his high standards.
He missed races early on with a foot injury, helped the Jamaican relay team win Commonwealth Games gold at the start of August and only dipped below 10 seconds in Warsaw two weeks ago.
High Jump Showdown
In the women's 200 metres, Olympic champion Allyson Felix proved she is the queen of the longer sprint, setting a season's best 22.02 seconds and also taking the title of Diamond League champion in her event.
"It's been a tough season with a lot of bumps along the way," she said. "I knew I would eventually get healthy again and hope to get another three quality years."
The evening's other highlight was a high jump showdown between Qatar's Mutaz Essa Barshim and Ukraine's Bohdan Bondarenko.
The Qatari won with a leap of 2.43 metres, the best in the world this year and beating his own Asian record by a centimetre, before each man tried, but failed, to surpass 2.46.
The 21-year-old record of 2.45 metres by Cuba's Javier Sotomayor still stands.
Earlier in the evening, New Zealand shot putter Valerie Adams, twice Olympic champion, improved on her own 2014 best with a 20.59-metre second round throw which also broke a 27-year-old meeting record.
Another double Olympic champion, Czech javelin thrower Barbara Spokatova, threw a season's best 67.99 metres.
In total seven season's best throws and runs were set on Friday.
ENGLAND-- Joe Root's fine century saved England from the ignominy of a series whitewash on home soil as they beat India by 41 runs in the fifth and final one-dayer at Headingley on Friday.
After taking an unbeatable 3-0 lead following a thumping nine-wicket victory in the last match, world champions India struggled to adapt to the conditions and allowed England to score more than 230 runs for the first time in the series.
Root's well-judged 113 from 108 balls on his home ground, his highest ODI score, lifted England to 294 for seven off their 50 overs. Captain Alastair Cook chipped in with 46 and Jos Buttler fell for a breezy 49 after being run out by Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
Ravindra Jadeja played well to score a valiant 87 as India stuttered and stumbled during their run chase and were eventually all out for 253 with eight balls remaining.
"Joe Root played fantastically well. He went on and a couple of other guys supported him. That's what we've been trying to do. We've got a lot of 20s and 30s in this series and when one of our guys went on and scored a century, we showed we've got a bowling attack to defend it," Cook said at the presentation ceremony.
Man-of-the-match Root, who smashed 10 fours and three sixes, put on 108 runs with Buttler before Dhoni knocked off the bails to break the fifth-wicket partnership after Buttler set off for a non-existent run.
Mohammed Shami ended Root's entertaining innings in the 46th over when the right-hander flicked the ball straight to Ravichandran Ashwin.
India's hopes of completing a 4-0 rout got off to a rocky start when they lost Edgbaston centurion Ajinkya Rahane for a duck after he nonchalantly sliced a James Anderson delivery into the hands of Eoin Morgan in the first over.
Soft Dismissals
From then on the visitors struggled to build momentum and they lost wickets at regular intervals, leaving all-rounder Jadeja frustrated as his swashbuckling knock of 87 off 68 balls turned out to be in vain.
The left-hander was last man out, clean bowled by Steven Finn in the penultimate over as he tried to score runs quickly in a bid to reach three figures in an international for the first time.
"We gave away too many wickets. There were quite a few soft dismissals and we were not able to score the number of runs we were supposed to. We are capable of getting 90-100 in the last 10 overs, but soft dismissals let us down," Dhoni said.
Despite the defeat, India will be buoyed by their 50-overs performances in England as they look to fine-tune their game before beginning the defence of their World Cup title in February.
England, however, face an uphill task if they are to get their hands on the 50-overs World Cup, a trophy they have never won.
They have won only one series against another test-playing nation since 2012 and have lost their last four at home.
Their consolation victory has done little to paper over the cracks that run deep in England's approach to the limited-overs format which some former players have labelled as old-fashioned and out of date.
"We know what we can do and it's been really frustrating for the last few games that we've not been able to do it. One good game in four isn't good enough," Cook, who many pundits believe should step down as ODI captain because he is ill-equipped to prosper as a batsman in the limited-overs game, told the BBC.
"We now have a massive chunk of one-day cricket where we can concentrate on improving as players. The last time we had a focus like this we got to the Champions Trophy final (in 2013). The World Cup preparation will be perfect and hopefully we can all improve."
BRUSSELS-- American Justin Gatlin proved on Friday he is the speed king for 2014 with a sprint double victory at the Diamond League finals in Brussels to put him firmly on course to complete the year without defeat.
Gatlin, unbeaten in 16 races coming into the finals in Brussels, set a personal and season's best time in a strong 100 metres and followed that up an hour later by destroying his rivals in the 200 metres.
If he wins his final race in Italy's Rieti on Sunday, he would become the first male sprinter to go through an entire season unbeaten since Usain Bolt in 2009, taking full advantage of the Olympic and world champion's exceptionally lean season.
In the 100 metres, Gatlin flew out of the blocks and crossed the line in 9.77 seconds, metres ahead of a strong field, all of them sub-10 seconds men.
Fellow American Mike Rogers was second in 9.93 and Jamaica's Asafa Powell third in 9.95. Gatlin's defeat of Rogers also made him the official 2014 Diamond League champion for the distance.
Gatlin, whose last defeat was his fourth-place finish a year ago in Brussels, took to the track again an hour later, destroying an arguably weaker 200 metres field.
His 19.71 seconds was three-hundredths of a second outside the season and personal best he set in Monaco in July. Qatar's Femi Ogunode was a distant second, several metres back in 20.15.
The 32-year-old Gatlin, who won Olympic gold for the 100 metres in 2004 and was world champion at both 100 and 200 metres in 2005, served a four-year doping ban from 2006-2010, but said he was getting better with age.
He was second behind Bolt in last year's world championships and said he wanted to challenge the Jamaican next season.
"Why not? It's not just one lane on the track when it comes to the 100 metres or any other event," he told reporters.
"I feel the world wants to see a good rivalry... That's what track and field is all about."
Bolt had won the 100 metres in Brussels for the last three years but was absent from Friday's season-concluding event after a poor season by his high standards.
He missed races early on with a foot injury, helped the Jamaican relay team win Commonwealth Games gold at the start of August and only dipped below 10 seconds in Warsaw two weeks ago.
High Jump Showdown
In the women's 200 metres, Olympic champion Allyson Felix proved she is the queen of the longer sprint, setting a season's best 22.02 seconds and also taking the title of Diamond League champion in her event.
"It's been a tough season with a lot of bumps along the way," she said. "I knew I would eventually get healthy again and hope to get another three quality years."
The evening's other highlight was a high jump showdown between Qatar's Mutaz Essa Barshim and Ukraine's Bohdan Bondarenko.
The Qatari won with a leap of 2.43 metres, the best in the world this year and beating his own Asian record by a centimetre, before each man tried, but failed, to surpass 2.46.
The 21-year-old record of 2.45 metres by Cuba's Javier Sotomayor still stands.
Earlier in the evening, New Zealand shot putter Valerie Adams, twice Olympic champion, improved on her own 2014 best with a 20.59-metre second round throw which also broke a 27-year-old meeting record.
Another double Olympic champion, Czech javelin thrower Barbara Spokatova, threw a season's best 67.99 metres.
In total seven season's best throws and runs were set on Friday.
ENGLAND-- Joe Root's fine century saved England from the ignominy of a series whitewash on home soil as they beat India by 41 runs in the fifth and final one-dayer at Headingley on Friday.
After taking an unbeatable 3-0 lead following a thumping nine-wicket victory in the last match, world champions India struggled to adapt to the conditions and allowed England to score more than 230 runs for the first time in the series.
Root's well-judged 113 from 108 balls on his home ground, his highest ODI score, lifted England to 294 for seven off their 50 overs. Captain Alastair Cook chipped in with 46 and Jos Buttler fell for a breezy 49 after being run out by Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
Ravindra Jadeja played well to score a valiant 87 as India stuttered and stumbled during their run chase and were eventually all out for 253 with eight balls remaining.
"Joe Root played fantastically well. He went on and a couple of other guys supported him. That's what we've been trying to do. We've got a lot of 20s and 30s in this series and when one of our guys went on and scored a century, we showed we've got a bowling attack to defend it," Cook said at the presentation ceremony.
Man-of-the-match Root, who smashed 10 fours and three sixes, put on 108 runs with Buttler before Dhoni knocked off the bails to break the fifth-wicket partnership after Buttler set off for a non-existent run.
Mohammed Shami ended Root's entertaining innings in the 46th over when the right-hander flicked the ball straight to Ravichandran Ashwin.
India's hopes of completing a 4-0 rout got off to a rocky start when they lost Edgbaston centurion Ajinkya Rahane for a duck after he nonchalantly sliced a James Anderson delivery into the hands of Eoin Morgan in the first over.
Soft Dismissals
From then on the visitors struggled to build momentum and they lost wickets at regular intervals, leaving all-rounder Jadeja frustrated as his swashbuckling knock of 87 off 68 balls turned out to be in vain.
The left-hander was last man out, clean bowled by Steven Finn in the penultimate over as he tried to score runs quickly in a bid to reach three figures in an international for the first time.
"We gave away too many wickets. There were quite a few soft dismissals and we were not able to score the number of runs we were supposed to. We are capable of getting 90-100 in the last 10 overs, but soft dismissals let us down," Dhoni said.
Despite the defeat, India will be buoyed by their 50-overs performances in England as they look to fine-tune their game before beginning the defence of their World Cup title in February.
England, however, face an uphill task if they are to get their hands on the 50-overs World Cup, a trophy they have never won.
They have won only one series against another test-playing nation since 2012 and have lost their last four at home.
Their consolation victory has done little to paper over the cracks that run deep in England's approach to the limited-overs format which some former players have labelled as old-fashioned and out of date.
"We know what we can do and it's been really frustrating for the last few games that we've not been able to do it. One good game in four isn't good enough," Cook, who many pundits believe should step down as ODI captain because he is ill-equipped to prosper as a batsman in the limited-overs game, told the BBC.
"We now have a massive chunk of one-day cricket where we can concentrate on improving as players. The last time we had a focus like this we got to the Champions Trophy final (in 2013). The World Cup preparation will be perfect and hopefully we can all improve."
