Lewis Hamilton has been hailed as “unbeatable” by his Mercedes team after winning the German GP and moving 19 points clear of his championship rival and team-mate Nico Rosberg.
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Daniel Ricciardo was second, ahead of Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen, the first time these two Red Bull drivers shared the podium.
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.
The Mercedes driver started second on the grid, but quickly had pole-sitter and teammate Nico Rosberg in his rear view mirror.
“The season will resume after the summer break with the Belgian Grand Prix on August 28 – a race which Hamilton won 12 months ago”.
Hamilton has won six of the past seven races and now has 49 career victories.
More issues came for the German driver when he came to take his 5 second penalty, Mercedes made a decision to take the 5 seconds at the same time as a tire change, however, since the team can’t touch the auto until the 5 seconds are up and an error with the stopwatch occurred, it meant Nico was sitting in the pits for well into 12 seconds.
The day got even worse for Rosberg, as he was handed a five-second penalty for forcing Verstappen off the track.
Ferrari’s form has faded over recent races and the best Sebastian Vettel could manage on his first appearance for the team on his home soil was a distant fifth ahead of stablemate Kimi Raikkonen.
“He pushed me off the track”, said Verstappen.
“That guy has great talent speed and on a good day, I think he is unbeatable”, said Hamilton’s Mercedes boss Toto Wolff.
“I thought it was a good battle [with Verstappen] and I was very surprised I got penalised”, said Rosberg.
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Where did it go wrong for Rosberg? “That will take me some time to digest”. After surrendering pole position and slipping to fourth early in proceedings, the 31-year-old was slapped with a five-point penalty for an unfair overtake of Verstappen during lap 29. “Really hard. For me, the start went completely wrong – none of it was good”. More importantly, he now holds a significant advantage over Rosberg in the standings with nine races left in the season. “So it’s awesome to close out the first part of the season”.
