The German was fourth after his sluggish start, and he spent much of the opening phase of the race behind the Red Bull pair of Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo.
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Lewis Hamilton reflected on an “awesome” afternoon at the Hockenheimring on Sunday as he clinched his sixth victory in seven races to extend his championship lead over Nico Rosberg to nineteen points.
However, stewards adjudged Rosberg’s passing move on Verstappen broke the rules forbidding drivers from forcing a rival off the track and he was given a five-second penalty. Wolff says the events just snowballed for Rosberg at Hockenheim.
Former F1 driver Franck Montagny suspects Hockenheim may be a big psychological blow for Rosberg, after dominating the weekend, setting pole but then messing up the start and struggling in the race.
That turned into an eight-second penalty because the stopwatch Mercedes used to time it broke and although he returned to the race less than five seconds behind Verstappen, he was not able to catch him.
Seventh place went to Hulkenberg in the Force India, and Jenson Button managed eighth place for a couple of points for McLaren (although Alonso finished in 12th), with Bottas in the Williams and Perez in the Force India completing the points places in Germany.
“When a day goes completely wrong all those things come together”, Rosberg said, adding that being 19 points behind was not tough to take.
“I didn’t know. It just felt like I was sitting there forever”, Rosberg, who finished fourth, said of the team malfunction.
“The real strength that we’ve shown, through and through, these last races has been inspiring for me”.
Ricciardo celebrated his second place by drinking champagne from his boot on the podium.
Formula 1 now takes a four-week break before resuming in Belgium at the end of August.
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“Two weekends in a row now it’s a podium and, for the team, we’re now second in the Constructors’ so I think we can be really proud, both of us, to split the Mercedes today”. Having been in a Championship winning auto of the Mercedes woks team for the past two years and not having won a Championship and what we’ve seen so far this season seems to tell me that Nico might not be a match to Lewis.
