Indeed having been 43 points behind Rosberg in May, Hamilton is now comfortably ahead of his Mercedes team-mate by virtue of an unbeaten July with victories in Austria, Silverstone, Hungary and here in Germany on Sunday.
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Toto Wolff is confident Nico Rosberg will bounce back from his frustrating run of form which culminated in a tricky German Grand Prix.
Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo of Australia steers his auto during the German Formula One Grand Prix in Hockenheim, Germany, Sunday, July 31, 2016.
Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton took a dominant victory in the German Grand Prix on Sunday to extend his lead in the 2016 Formula 1 Drivers’ Championship to 19 points ahead of the summer break.
Rosberg won the first four races of 2016, besting pole-sitter Hamilton off the line in Australia and Bahrain as the reigning drivers’ champion was let down by his launch.
“What a race”, Hamilton, who started second on the grid, told the crowd from 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 German’s misery was compounded after he was handed a five-second penalty for aggressively overtaking Verstappen.
Kimi Raikkonen was fifth for Ferrari, beating team mate Sebastian Vettel who was a disappointing sixth on his first appearance on home soil in the Italian team’s scarlet colours.
“There were lots of things going through my mind at the time [after Spain]”, he went on.
Lauda said: “Honestly I think it’s okay”.
“He pushed me off the track”, said Verstappen.
“It was wonderful all the support I got, I’m really thankful for that – it was really awesome and I’m really thankful for that”.
Rosberg denied that the move was “comparable” to his last-lap run-in with teammate Lewis Hamilton at the Red Bull Ring earlier this month, for which he was also penalized.
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“My little title sums it up, everything went wrong – it was a really crap day today, crap race”, he 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”. And with nine races left, Hamilton is now the overwhelming favourite to win title number four.
