With the three-time world champion’s sixth win in the last seven races extending his points advantage over Rosberg to 19, never let it be said again that Professor Hamilton lacks the intelligence of his closest rivals.
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Verstappen overtook Ricciardo from the outside as they raced into the first corner but Ricciardo later regained the second place to finish 6.9 seconds behind Hamilton, who covered the 67 laps on the 4.574km track in 1 hour, 30:44.200 minutes.
It topped off a flawless afternoon for Hamilton, who has put a stranglehold on the championship after a remarkable recovery from a hard start to the season.
“I feel really happy with my performance today”. “For me, yesterday wasn’t ideal, but you learn from those things”. “A tough one, yes, very tough”, said the 31-year-old. “Really hard. For me, the start went completely wrong – none of it was good”. There was a lot of wheel-spin and it caught me by surprise.
The home fans had another German to cheer as four-time champion Sebastian Vettel finished fifth ahead of his Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen and compatriot Nico Hulkenberg, who was seventh on home turf for Force India.
Williams driver Valtteri Bottas was ninth ahead of Sergio Perez who handed Force India a double-points finish with 10th. Having lost out to Hamilton for the past two seasons in the same vehicle, 31-year-old Rosberg would’ve been forgiven for losing confidence in his abilities heading into 2016, yet he reeled off four consecutive victories to build an assertive lead over Hamilton. Red Bull pushed past Ferrari into second place in the constructors’ standings.
“I didn’t know. It just felt like I was sitting there forever”, Rosberg, who finished fourth, said of the team malfunction. For his team-mate Rosberg it was a nightmare.
The incident on Sunday bore more than a striking resemblance to Rosberg’s dramatic last-lap crash with Hamilton at the Austrian Grand Prix earlier this month in which he was also penalised by the stewards. The Dutch teenager had to run wide and off the circuit as he attempted – and failed – to stave off a charging Rosberg. “It’s as good a buffer as I could get with the circumstances”.
“That cost me dearly”. “But it didn’t make a difference in the end because I wouldn’t have been able to get the Red Bulls anyway”. “When a day goes completely wrong, all those things come together”.
“Today I’m very disappointed because I had an awesome qualifying yesterday and I was feeling good”, said Rosberg.
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Hamilton could choose to take a new power unit at Spa in four weeks’ time, the overtake-friendly track could benefit him as he takes a 10, or possibly even 20-place penalty for using a sixth engine element of the season.
