Hamilton has won six of the past seven races and now has 49 career victories.
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The world champ possibly spoke for all teams and drivers when he said he was relieved it was now time for the mid-season break.
The Dutchman hinted the incident was similar to Rosberg’s attempt to resist Lewis Hamilton for the lead on the final lap of the Austrian GP four weeks ago, calling Rosberg’s driving: “not very handy!” It wasn’t until the next stint that he finally caught up to the Red Bulls, and after his failures at the race’s start, he put his most aggressive moves on Ricciardo and Max Verstappen, including a particularly wide move on the inside of Verstappen the track’s signature hairpin that forced the young driver off track.
“A really tough one today for sure, really hard”, Rosberg noted. I was very surprised I got penalised. Finishing fourth was down to the penalty. “I was very surprised to get that penalty”, a downbeat Rosberg said later. “He was just driving straight so I had to go off the track otherwise we would have crashed”. Drivers are required to serve in-race time penalties during pit stops – with the team unable to touch the auto until the penalty has elapsed – and Mercedes served Rosberg’s at his final pit stop.
“Stopwatch failure”, team boss Toto Wolff explained after the race. “I’m just super happy”, Hamilton told Sky Sports F1.
“Being 19 points behind is not tough, tough is losing the race in the way I did and that will take some time to digest”. Rosberg’s move however, didn’t sit well with Verstappen as he almost went off the track.
“He pushed me off the track”, Verstappen shouted over the team radio.
Rosberg was soon tussling with Verstappen. I was 43 points behind at one stage, so to keep working on the gap turn it around like that is great.
“I’ve definitely been lower but it felt at the time it was nearly like it couldn’t go any further”, Hamilton added after the 49th win of his career.
Rosberg was stuck in fourth and had to hold off Ferrari drivers Sebastien Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen who were at fifth and sixth respectively.
The 31-year-old said his poor start was because of “too much engagement with the clutch” before adding: “Today I’m disappointed”.
Despite three-stopping, the Brit never one relinquished the lead and claimed his first German GP victory for the Mercedes works team.
At pole position on the grid in the final race, Rosberg had a awful start pushing his position to four, which Hamilton as well as Red Bull utilised to their advantage with the former leading the race from turn one with a gap of 1.3 seconds.
He now leads Rosberg by 19 points in the standings with nine rounds of a record 21-race season remaining.
“What a race!” he said on the podium. In the first part of the race I was sitting in third and the pace was okay but I think I really came to life in the second half of the race and that’s when I was able to show a bit more speed and capture second place.
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Formula One now heads into its annual summer break before reconvening for the Belgian Grand Prix on August 28.
