German Grand Prix Report

Our F1 expert analyst Tom Wilkinson reports.

The 5 red lights went out and the Red Bulls charged off the line, both with blistering starts swamping the Mercedes of Hamilton into the first turn. It wasn’t a great start from either Mercedes, Rosberg was also slow away from 11th on the grid. Both McLaren’s had good starts as did Felipe Massa once again, the Brazilian not quite as fast off the line as he was last weekend but still impressive. It was a scintillating start to the German Grand Prix , Vettel was leading but the McLaren’s decided to have a fight between themselves, Perez and Button having a good scrap, but it was good clean racing.

Ferrari focused on the race during qualifying taking the medium tyres to start the race, but disaster struck on lap 4 when Massa suffered an apparent gearbox issue, sending the Brazilian spinning out of the race. The pitstops were underway shortly afterwards and Paul Di Resta was first in, but thing’s turned bad when he was released right into the path of Jean Eric Vergne, the Frenchman had to take avoiding action to avoid a collision. This incident was investigated by the stewards and the team were fined 5000 Euros for the unsafe release. Quite why the stewards chose to investigate this after the race I do not know, a drive through penalty would have made much more sense in my view. The pit lane then became very busy with the front runners making their stops.

On lap 9 Mark Webber made his pit stop, and disaster struck the Australian when he was released from the pit box without the right rear wheel attached. The wheel gun appeared to fail, but the head mechanic failed to notice and gave Webber the all clear. As he exited the box, the wheel became detached from the car, bouncing down the pit lane and hitting a cameraman. It was a dramatic and highly concerning moment, the cameraman was attended to immediately by the excellent medical staff. It was confirmed on Sunday evening that he had suffered some broken ribs and broken collarbone, and he was transferred to a local hospital for treatment. My latest update was that he is responding well to treatment and is essentially ok.

Webber was wheeled back to the garage and fitted with all 4 wheels and sent on his way, rejoining however a lap down. The team were later handed a 30,000 euro fine for the unsafe release, a fine that quite frankly is too light. When a very similar incident happened to Rosberg in Hungary in the past, Mercedes were fined 50,000 euros. These mistakes can happen in pitstops, but when wheels become detached from cars and bounce down the pit lane, they can kill people. There needs to be a more serious crack down on this in my view, safety must remain a priority, not only for the drivers, but everyone at the track, and not every last tenth of a second.

While things were going wrong for Red Bull in the pit lane, things were going well, very well in fact for Romain Grosjean in the Lotus. He was setting some impressive lap times and catching the pack ahead. Hamilton was also fast in the Mercedes, but after the pitstops he rejoined behind teammate Rosberg who was now holding him up. Nico was told over the radio that they were on different strategies and not to hold up Hamilton. Raikkonen was catching the Silver Arrows very quickly and Grosjean could easily make the jump in the pitstops, Lotus were looking very strong in the early stages. Quite the reverse for Fernando Alonso, the sole remaining Ferrari seemingly having no pace in the early stages. Hamilton and Raikkonen eventually made the move on Rosberg and were pulling away easily. Later on Lewis Hamilton was complaining he was struggling with grip, the Mercedes not having a great race so far.

Fernando Alonso was improving on his earlier struggles, he was in a great battle with Hamilton who was still suffering with lack of grip. It was fantastic racing from the former world champions that lasted several laps. Hamilton then made a much needed pit stop moving Alonso up to 4th place. Then the attention quickly moved to the very smokey Marussia of Jules Bianchi, he suffered an almighty engine failure on the way up to the chicane. Smoke and flames were seen pouring from the car, the Frenchman very swiftly clambered out of the cockpit. The car was in a tricky place for the marshals to recover, but just as a tractor arrived to recover the car, it began to roll backwards down the hill. With no driver seated inside it slowly made its way across the track to the other side, the Safety Car was immediately deployed as it was a very dangerous situation. Ironically the car came to rest in a much safer position being stopped by an advertising board. With the Safety Car out on track the pit lane became very busy once again.

The race restarted and Vettel bolted away in the lead, teammate Mark Webber was beginning to slice through the field. It was an impressive comeback from the Australian who was able to un-lap himself behind the Safety Car, he was back in the race with a possibility of some points. Lotus were looking for the victory after Sebastian Vettel had a KERS issue and was falling back to Grosjean and Raikkonen. It was a mighty impressive performance from both the Lotus drivers, they were pushing Vettel to the limit. Meanwhile Nico Hulkenberg was getting the most out the Sauber as he was being hounded by Hamilton for 6th place. The German has been rumoured to be leaving the struggling Swiss team at the end of the season, but the performance at his home race was a considerable improvement.

Up front Vettel was still feeling the heat of Grosjean and Raikkonen hunting him for the lead, Fernando Alonso was beginning to catch them making it a 4 way battle, it was scintillating racing in the closing stages of the German Grand Prix. After the final round of stops, Raikkonen was leading as he stayed out, but teammate Grosjean was closer than ever to Vettel and still closing in. Hamilton was now in the mix as he also hadn’t made a final stop. The Mercedes was slower than the Red Bull, he was holding Vettel up helping the Lotus team hugely. He wasn’t making it easy for the reigning champion to pass, they were ducking and darting all over the track it was a fascinating battle, but eventually Vettel made the move stick.

With 10 laps remaining Raikkonen and Alonso pit together for the soft tyre and rejoined 3r and 4th, they were just behind the leading two of Vettel and Grosjean once again, but closing in on the faster tyres. Team orders predictably came into play at Lotus and Grosjean allowed Raikkonen through into 2nd place, the Finn was then flying after Vettel in the lead. It was getting closer and closer, Raikkonen was really lighting up the race track. If there had been a couple more laps he may well have done it, but after a fantastic 60 laps of the Nurburgring, Sebastian Vettel won his home Grand Prix for the very first time. Kimi Raikkonen came over the line 1.008 seconds later with team mate Romain Grosjean just behind, it was a fantastic race for the Lotus team, and Vettel for the first time in his F1 career wins a race in the month of July. Lewis Hamilton moved ahead of former teammate Jenson Button on the final lap to finish a rather disappointing race for Mercedes.

Official race classification after 60 laps.

1 Vettel
2 Raikkonen
3 Grosjean
4 Alonso
5 Hamilton
6 Button
7 Webber
8 Perez
9 Rosberg
10 Hulkenberg
11 Di Resta
12 Ricciardo
13 Sutil
14 Gutierrez
15 Maldonado
16 Bottas
17 Pic
18 Van Der Garde
19 Chilton

DNF: Vergne, Bianchi, Massa

It was a fascinating and action packed race, full of drama. It was disappointing for Williams who this weekend mark their 600th race, slow pitstops seemed to be the problem as well as lack of pace. Force India also suffered a poor weekend, they just couldn’t move forward through the pack. I thought Nico Hulkenberg had a good afternoon in the Sauber, and considering Webber’s terrible pitstop he did well to get points. The big shout out though goes to Lotus, they have really dominated the race by pushing Vettel to the very last corner, terrific stuff from the team based in Enstone.

It’s now another 3 week break for Formula 1, the next race is in the Beautiful city of Budapest for the Hungarian Grand Prix, a race very close to my heart.

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