Taking a 19-point advantage over Nico Rosberg after a victory in the German Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton says he feels “closer to leading” the title race.
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The overarching narrative from this year’s Formula One world championship is – was – Lewis Hamilton’s 43-point deficit to his team-mate and former championship leader Nico Rosberg.
Rosberg, on the other hand, had a far from ideal start and found himself down in fourth place, with both the Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen already ahead of him.
Lewis Hamilton has increased his lead of the world championship to 19 points with victory in the German GP.
Ricciardo’s teammate Verstappen is the only driver to win a race this season apart from Rosberg and Hamilton.
Rosberg’s spirited fightback was dampened by a five-second time penalty for being judged to have pushed Max Verstappen off track in a overtaking move, while Mercedes made a blunder with its timing and held Rosberg in the pits for eight seconds instead of five.
Sebastian Vettel was fifth on his first appearance in Ferrari colors on home soil, crossing the line 32.5 seconds adrift of Hamilton, with Finnish teammate Kimi Raikkonen capping a disappointing weekend for the Italian team in sixth.
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“I think we did a good job on that today”. “I was just trying to bat them off. I’ve got great people round me who depend on me to be upbeat”.
However, Rosberg said the incident mattered little in the end, considering everything else that went wrong in the race for the pole-sitter.
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.
“It took me by surprise, definitely”, he said.
“He didn’t turn in, he just kept driving straight, so I had to go off the track, otherwise he would’ve crashed”.
“I thought it was good battle”, he added.
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“Our objective was to go into the summer break ahead of Ferrari”, said team principal Christian Horner.
