Indeed, Hamilton has now won six of the last seven races to turn a 43-point deficit to Rosberg into a healthy championship lead.
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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.
While Verstappen changed to a new set of supersoft tyres, the same compound he started on, Ricciardo was switched onto softs for the second stint of the race as Red Bull split their strategies.
Hamilton, though, remains acutely aware he will have to take an engine penalty soon afterward – with Spa and Monza considered the prime candidates – that will have a bearing on his campaign. Red Bull pushed past Ferrari into second place in the constructors’ standings.
Rosberg was given a five-second time penalty and two penalty points on his licence for his move on Verstappen at the Hockenheim hairpin. Finishing fourth was down to the penalty. There was a lot of wheelspin, it caught me by surprise.
“The stopwatch didn’t start properly”, Toto Wolff subsequently told reporters, “and once we realised, we had to take it safe”. One of those days where it all comes together and goes completely wrong. “Still not enough because I’m not a race win ahead yet and so I hope I might be able to have the chance to get a race win ahead and I think then I would feel like I was ahead”.
The incident came on lap 29 after both Rosberg and Verstappen had pitted.
Rosberg insisted he had steered at full lock after diving down the inside of Verstappen, and again pressed his case post-race.
“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.
When F1 returns from its four-week recess at the Belgian Grand Prix on August 28, the challenge for Rosberg will be to end the momentum which has seen Hamilton put himself on course for a third straight championship win.
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Sebastian Vettel was fifth on his first appearance in Ferrari colors on home soil, crossing the line 32.5 seconds adrift of Hamilton, with Finnish teammate Kimi Raikkonen capping a disappointing weekend for the Italian team in sixth.
