Lewis Hamilton held on to a dominant Italian Grand Prix victory after he escaped escaped sanction in a post-race investigating into Mercedes' starting tyre pressures. The Briton took his seventh victory of the season in Monza, with the Mercedes driver beating Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel to the flag by 25 seconds.

The Briton had been cruising in the final stages of the race when, with a handful of laps remainning, he was suddenly told to increase the 19-second gap he had in hand over Vettel.

"We need to pull a gap, don't ask questions, just execute," said his race engineer, who informed Hamilton that all would be explained after the chequered flag.

The issue stemmed from tests on the grid, inside the five-minute-signal before the start, that had revealed that the left-rear tyre of Hamilton’s car and that of team-mate Rosberg had tyre pressures below the minimum starting pressures specified for the weekend. Hamilton’s tyre was 0.3psi below the specification, while Rosberg’s was 0.6 under the required mark.

However, after the investigation the team was found not to be at fault for the transgression with the stewards stating that “the pressure in the tyres concerned were at the minimum start pressure recommended by Pirelli when they were fitted to the car.”

The stewards added that “the tyre warming blankets had been disconnected from their power source, as is normal procedure, and the tyres were significantly below the maximum permitted tyre blanket temperature at the time of the FIA’s measurement on the grid, and at significantly different temperatures from other cars measured on the grid.

“Further, the Stewards are satisfied that the team followed the currently specified procedure, supervised by the Tyre Manufacturer, for the safe operation of the tyres.”