Making good on his attempt at defending his Formula 1 world championship title, Lewis Hamilton took another victory, this time at the 2016 German GP at Hockenheim.
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After Rosberg won four successive races at the start of what is proving to be a roller-coaster campaign, Hamilton has burst back with six victories in seven races heading into F1’s summer holidays.
After the first round of pitstops, the same top six positions were maintained and only started to change halfway through the thrilling race, after the second pitstops. Red Bull pushed past Ferrari into second place in the constructors’ standings.
But can you really count out Rosberg? Finishing fourth was down to the penalty. “There was a lot of wheelspin, it caught me by surprise”, Rosberg told Sky Sports.
Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff has revealed that the stopwatch that the team were using did not start as it should have.
“There will be one race where I’ll fall further behind”, he said.
The turnaround since the Spanish Grand Prix, when the Mercedes pair collided on the first lap, has been remarkable and in July Ham-ilton became the first person to win four times in a calendar month.
Rosberg insisted he had steered at full lock after diving down the inside of Verstappen, and again pressed his case post-race.
“At one point I thought he was going to run into me so I opened up and then he didn’t turn in, he was just driving straight so I had to go off the track otherwise we would have crashed”. He forced me off the track. On the other hand, Rosberg had one of his worst starts and saw himself being passed by both Red Bull by the first corner.
Ricciardo’s younger teammate, Verstappen – who finished third in Germany – is sixth on 120 points.
That will offer a chance for Rosberg, who is chasing his maiden drivers’ championship, to close the gap and Hamilton believes he needs a bigger advantage at the top.
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“This is two weekends in a row now with a podium”, said Australian Ricciardo. “Still not enough because I’m not a race win ahead yet”, said Hamilton, who won at Belgium’s iconic Spa-Francorchamps circuit past year and has got to be the favourite to repeat the feat when the season resumes on August 28.
