"Quite incredible," was Sebastian Vettel's verdict. "Awesome," said Red Bull team boss Christian Horner.

They were describing the pace of Lewis Hamilton on his way to victory in the Italian Grand Prix, and they were spot on.

It was a stupendous performance, easily Hamilton's most impressive victory of a year that he has by and large dominated utterly from the first race in Australia seven months ago.

There was a scare after the race when it appeared he might be disqualified because of a discrepancy to do with his tyres. But in the end, Mercedes were cleared.

Even had they not been, it was hard to see how even that would have done much to slow Hamilton's momentum towards the title. Now, with an advantage of 53 points, a very early conclusion to the destiny of the championship is very much on the cards.

The world champion is in a league of his own at the moment, driving a car that is comfortably the class of the field.

The bare statistics are impressive enough - seven wins from 12 races and 11 pole positions, including a run of seven in a row that shows no signs of stopping.

But when you bear in mind that Hamilton only lost Monaco because of a strategy error by his team, and might well have won in Austria, too, had his engine not misbehaved at the start, "awesome" and "incredible" barely cover it.

Team-mate Nico Rosberg, the only man who has comparable equipment to Hamilton, just cannot get near the world champion.

Rosberg was compromised in qualifying this weekend by having to fit an older engine - in both specification and in terms of life - after a problem was discovered with the new-spec one in his car.

But there was no indication that he would have beaten Hamilton to pole if that had not happened.

(BBC)