With the win Hamilton increased his championship lead to 19 points over Rosberg as the F1 boys now take a four-week break before resuming hostilities at the Belgian Grand Prix, a race Hamilton won previous year.
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Mercedes revealed the reason behind Nico Rosberg’s slow pit stop during Sunday’s German Grand Prix was due to a stopwatch malfunction.
The Mercedes driver started second on the grid, but quickly had pole-sitter and teammate Nico Rosberg in his rear view mirror.
Reflecting on his championship lead over Mercedes team-mate Rosberg, Hamilton said that he was pleased to head into the annual European summer holidays with a firm grip.
But following their first-lap collision at the Spanish Grand Prix in May, Hamilton has taken 160 points from the 175 available, while Rosberg has failed to finish on the podium in four of the seven races since.
Rosberg was given a five-second time penalty and two penalty points on his licence for his move on Verstappen at the Hockenheim hairpin.
Although acknowledging the difficulty in beating an on-form Hamilton, Wolff replied with “a big yes” when asked if Rosberg can fight back in the title race.
A four-time champion when he was still with Red Bull, Vettel is still without a win in Hockenheim, although he was born and raised in nearby Heppenheim and knows the track well. Today was definitely the best one I would say.
Ricciardo’s team mate Max Verstappen finished third, his fourth top-three result. On the other hand, Rosberg had one of his worst starts and saw himself being passed by both Red Bull by the first corner. This engine has done incredible to get us to where we are and I’m super grateful for the life it has led and the laps we’ve led with it. “There are still nine races to go – it’s more than 200 points to collect”, Wolff said. “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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“There were so many things that went wrong today that it was just one more small thing that actually didn’t make a difference in the end because I wouldn’t have been able to get the Red Bulls anyway”.
