Cape Town – Lewis Hamilton pulled clear of Nico Rosberg in the title race as he made a clean-sweep of July’s F1 races with victory at the Hockenheimring on Sunday.
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When Australian driver Daniel Ricciardo has placed second in the German Grand Prix behind British driver Lewis Hamilton, he celebrated as only an Aussie can.
When asked about Hamilton’s recent strong run, that has turned Rosberg’s 43-point advantage into a 19-point deficit, he pointed out that his teammate has always been a tough competitor.
No driver has won the first four races of the season and failed to go on and win the title, but Rosberg is in danger of doing just that. Despite a mid-race fightback Rosberg’s charge was hampered by a five-second penalty and a Mercedes “stopwatch failure” at the subsequent stop, meaning he had to settle for fourth position behind Hamilton and the Red Bulls. After surrendering pole position and slipping to fourth early in proceedings, the 31-year-old was slapped with a five-point penalty for an unfair overtake of Verstappen during lap 29.
Order was restored after the cars came into the pits for the third time but this time around, Ricciardo jumped his teammate in the standings claiming 2nd ahead of Verstappen, Rosberg, Vettel and Raikkonen.
“You have to earn that trust as well, because I’m quite new still”. Red Bull pushed past Ferrari into second place in the constructors’ standings. “I did a pretty good lap but I wasn’t sure if that was enough”.
The three-time world champion was then able to maintain a gap over his pursuers, initially Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and then team-mate Daniel Ricciardo, while preserving his power unit.
“I think we’ve put a positive front of results together”, said Horner, whose team broke Mercedes stranglehold on victory with Max Verstappen’s triumph in May’s Spanish Grand Prix.
“The real strength that we’ve shown, through and through, these last races has been inspiring for me”. “Can you explain to them that I was full lock on the steering wheel”, he said over the team radio.
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“Nico most likely will be out enjoying a Sunday drive and I’m going to be battling through a lot of different people”.
