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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The reigning world champion benefited from polesitter and Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg’s poor start to take the lead into Turn 1 and controlled the race from there.
Mercedes fired an ominous warning to the rest of the field in that session, as they opted to run on the soft tyre – the rest of the field were on supersofts – and still wound up fastest, with Hamilton marginally ahead of Rosberg, Ricciardo and Raikkonen.
“I’m not down, firstly, I’ve got a race to win tomorrow”, said the Briton who won in Hungary from second on the grid after being beaten to pole by Rosberg in controversial circumstances.
Determined to reassert himself over his former childhood friend, Rosberg set the pace in each of the weekend’s three practice sessions. Daniel Ricciardo went second, followed by Verstappen.
He sat out the penalty on his third pit stop but the team appeared to have kept him behind for longer than the five seconds. We were just particularly impressed that he went out there and got the pole time with that sort of stress, and with two laps of fuel on board.
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. It was tilting at windmills and after getting the gap down to six seconds, the Australian backed off.
It was all a kick in the teeth for German Grand Prix organisers, who had to scrap the 2015 race at the Nuerburgring because of financial issues and had hoped a German victor could boost the popularity of the flagging event on its return to Hockenheim this year.
Ricciardo added: “This is two weekends in a row on the podium and one of the most refreshing things is seeing all the fans back in Germany”.
But the day belonged to Hamilton, who bounced up and down on the podium giving the crowd huge thumbs-ups as the national anthems played. and then celebrated by launching the race trophy high into the air. “I had the pace today I just didn’t finish it off in the last lap”. We had a good auto.
A double podium for Red Bull Racing ensured they moved ahead of Ferrari in the constructors’ championship for the first time this season. One of those days where it all comes together and goes completely wrong. “So it’s awesome to close out the first part of the season”.
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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. “Yesterday second place but got a great start, the balance was unbelievable and it was just about keeping it cool and looking after the engine”.
