Lewis Hamilton extended his lead in the Formula One drivers’ championship to 19 points after winning the German Grand Prix easily on Sunday, with Mercedes team-mate and title rival Nico Rosberg only fourth.
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Hamilton seized the advantage at the start from pole-sitter Rosberg, who drove an underwhelming race in front of his home fans, and was never headed.
It is a phenomenal turnaround for the three-time drivers’ champion, turning a 43-point deficit after Spain into a 19-point lead heading into the summer break.
All the races that Nico won at the beginning of the season were races when Lewis had contact with a auto at the beginning or because he started from behind due to a penalty. What a race, what a fantastic start.
Rosberg was forced to take five-second penalty before his pit stop after the stewards ruled he drove Red Bull’s Max Verstappen off the track.
“No, I have enough evidence to show myself that I’m strongest after hard moments, time and time again, so no issues there”, Rosberg said.
Hamilton’s success at Hockenheim on Sunday, the 49th victory of his F1 career, was attained with relative ease after passing slow-away polesitter Rosberg – who eventually finished fourth – on the run to the first corner. Finishing fourth was down to the penalty.
“If there is something like momentum, it’s for him to keep that momentum, but we’ve seen that coming in waves from all directions”.
To make matters worse for the luckless Rosberg, Mercedes team manager Ron Meadows had a problem with his stop watch and the team held him by more than eight seconds instead of just five.
“Stopwatch failure”, team boss Toto Wolff explained after the race.
“That guy has great talent speed and on a good day, I think he is unbeatable”, Wolff said. The only time Hamilton was threatened on Sunday was when Ricciardo managed to reduce the lead gap to six seconds.
“It can always be improved, for sure I’m not saying that because of this example [when he was penalised for forcing Max Verstappen off the track], but in general. I had to go straight and I had to go off track otherwise we would have crashed”.
For a second race running, Hamilton started in second place on the grid behind Nico Rosberg.
Behind the Mercedes and Red Bulls it was the Ferraris of Vettel and Raikkonen, whose fifth and sixth place finishes mean Ferrari now trail Red Bull in the constructors championship. “There is a lot work ahead of us, the last few races have not been smooth”.
“We saw him start the season extremely well, and at the end of the season in 2015 he was very good”. I think then I would feel like I was ahead.
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Ricciardo celebrated his second place by drinking champagne from his boot on the podium.
