His Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton won the race to open up a 19-point lead ahead of Rosberg, who said he was using “full lock” of his steering when he passed Verstappen, in the title race.
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The Mercedes driver started second on the grid, but quickly had pole-sitter and teammate Nico Rosberg in his rear view mirror.
Sunday saw the latest in a string of strong performances from Red Bull who have bounced back from a woeful 2015 season characterised by a bitter public falling out with engine supplier Renault.
“Obviously I have a guy that I’m working with very, very closely and it’s been an up-and-down season and it’s not his fault or not my fault, it’s just the way these new clutch-regs [regulations] are and how sensitive the clutches are”.
“The real strength that we’ve shown, through and through, these last races has been inspiring for me”.
Down in fourth after the 320 metres rush down the straight, Rosberg battled to regain a place on lap one without reward as the field stretched and settled. “Yeah, it’s just a work in progress”. “That’s going to take some time to digest over the next few days”.
Hamilton confirmed also that again he had been conserving his engine in today’s race. Rosberg was penalised by the stewards for that incident, too.
Ferrari’s first race following the departure of technical director James Allison ended with Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen finishing a distant fifth and sixth respectively, while Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg came seventh.
His mistake in Germany was very similar to his at the Austrian Grand Prix at the beginning of July, when he also turned extremely late in a tight corner.
The Dutch teenager is the only driver to win a race this season apart from Hamilton and Rosberg and finished 13.4 seconds behind Hamilton.
The Briton crossed the line 6.9 seconds ahead of Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo, who was on the podium for the second race in a row on his 100th grand prix appearance. It wasn’t until the next stint that he finally caught up to the Red Bulls, and after his failures at the race’s start, he put his most aggressive moves on Ricciardo and Max Verstappen, including a particularly wide move on the inside of Verstappen the track’s signature hairpin that forced the young driver off track. “This is the first double podium for us in over a year and it is awesome to close out the first part of the season like this”.
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The next race is the Belgian Grand Prix on August 28.
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