Lewis Hamilton took a crucial victory in the Italian Grand Prix after Mercedes teammate, Nico Rosberg, made an error under pressure from the Briton.

Defying an awful start, which saw him plunge from pole position to fourth at the first corner, Hamilton responded by producing a storming drive to charge back to the front before pressurising Rosberg into the pivotal race-costing mistake that saw the German miss the chicane.

The victory in Monza reduces Hamilton’s deficit in the title race to 22 points.

Behind the two Mercedes drivers, Felipe Massa drove steadily to third place as his team-mate, Valtteri Bottas, recovered in impressive style from a poor start to take fourth on the day that Williams confirmed both will stay on next season.

The race seemed to be falling into Rosberg’s lap as Hamilton’s car was slow away from pole position and he was swamped by the field, falling behind his team-mate, McLaren’s Kevin Magnussen and Massa.

Hamilton was soon pushing hard to make up lost ground.

He took advantage of Massa, passing Magnussen at the second chicane on lap five to grab third from the Dane at the first Lesmo corner on lap five.

And five laps later, Hamilton pulled a superb move on Massa, holding the outside line at the first chicane and grabbing the place into the second, left-handed part.

At that point, Hamilton was 2.2 seconds behind Rosberg and he inched closer as they traded lap times to be 1.3 seconds behind when Rosberg made his only pit stop on lap 24, his position as the lead car giving him priority on pit-stop timing.

Hamilton was 1.8 seconds behind when he rejoined after his own stop a lap later.

He was warned by his engineer that the “race will be at the end – look after your tyres” but chose to ignore the advice, instead making his move when his tyres were in their best condition.

He cut into Rosberg’s lead, reducing it from 1.8 seconds on lap 26, to 1.3 a lap later and then 0.7 with a new fastest lap as they crossed the line at the end of lap 28.

A few hundred metres later, Rosberg braked too late into the first chicane and was forced to take to the escape road, Hamilton taking the lead as his team-mate negotiated the bollards before rejoining the track.

It was the second time in the race Rosberg had made the same mistake, the first coming on lap nine.

Hamilton extended his lead in measured but inexorable fashion over the next few laps to four seconds, where it stabilised until the Englishman locked up a front tyre going into the first chicane with three laps to go.

That cost him half a second but Hamilton had everything under control to take his sixth and arguably most important win of the year.

The German said: “Lewis drove a great race and he deserves it today.

“It was just that Lewis was quick,” added Rosberg. “Coming from behind, I needed to up my pace and as a result went into the mistake. That was very bad, and that lost me the lead.

“But second place is a good result and there are still a lot of races to go.”

The win will be a significant psychological boost to Hamilton and blow to 29 year – old Rosberg as the German was already under the spotlight after being criticised by his team for causing a collision between the two at the previous race in Belgium.

He received boos from the gathering crowd below the podium as he gave his post-race interview, as he had two weeks previously at Spa.

However, pundits have described Hamilton’s win of the Italian grand prix as controversial and have suggested that the victory was rigged by Mercedes.

There have been claims that Rosberg deliberately drove off the track, making Hamilton win, to atone for causing the pair’s crash at Belgium a fortnight ago.

Former triple world champion, Sir Jackie Stewart, joined fans on social media in questioning the circumstance which allowed Hamilton come top after Rosberg deviated from chicane.

Stewart said: “I thought, ‘hello, what’s going on here?’ He could have at least made an effort to get round the corner but he didn’t.”