MOTOR SPORT FORMULA ONE CHAMPIONSHIP:LEWIS HAMILTON scored his second win of the year at the German Grand Prix, emerging on top after a three-way fight for victory with Ferrari's Fernando Alonso and third-placed Mark Webber of Red Bull Racing. Title leader Sebastian Vettel finished fourth after an early spin.
On Friday at the Nürburgring, Hamilton had ruled himself out of contention for victory saying that with the rules on blown diffusers back to where they were prior to the British Grand Prix, Red Bull Racing would again enjoy a significant pace advantage. But that was without factoring in a raft of new aerodynamic parts his team had brought to Germany. And while his pace on Friday was lacklustre, Hamilton’s qualifying lap was a revelation, the British driver blasting his way to the front row, just five hundredths of a second off Webber’s pole-winning time.
Webber though has suffered with bad starts all season and when the lights went out yesterday, the Red Bull driver again got away badly, leaving Hamilton to power through to claim the lead as they went into turn one.
So slow was Webber he was almost eclipsed by the hard-charging Alonso, who had breezed past Vettel to take third. Webber, though, managed to deflect the Ferrari driver’s challenge at the last moment. Hamilton, though, was away and attempting to open a gap. Behind the front two, Vettel and Alonso began to tussle, with the title leader accelerating past the Ferrari on lap two. Six laps later, though, and Alonso was again in front, muscling his way past in the first corner.
It was to be Vettel’s last contact with the leaders as, soon after, he put a wheel on a greasy kerb and spun. By the time he’d emerged from the run-off area he was eight seconds back from the leaders and while he had not lost a place he would spend the rest of the race fighting hard to salvage a decent points haul from the afternoon.
Ahead, Hamilton appeared in control, but when Webber pitted on lap 14, the McLaren driver couldn’t respond to the Australian’s pace on new tyres and lost the lead when he made his own pit stop two laps later.
But while Webber’s early stop worked in his favour, his second visit, on lap 30, didn’t. Released from Webber’s wake, Hamilton and Alonso were quicker through the Australian’s stop and by the time they took on new tyres they had pushed the Red Bull driver out to third, with Alonso ahead of Hamilton by dint of staying out a lap longer. Hamilton, though, made the most of his warmer tyres to power around the outside of Alonso at turn two and retake the lead. From there he never looked back and comfortably managed his final stop to control a slim gap back to Alonso and take his first win since China in April.
“It just couldn’t feel any better,” Hamilton said of the win, which leaves him third in the drivers’ title standings on 134 points, five behind Webber. “I think we never expected to come here this weekend and be so fast. We were hindered in the last race a little bit, but the guys did a fantastic job. I just feel great. I think one of the best races I have ever done.”
Alonso too was pleased, taking encouragement from his Ferrari’s ability to perform in differing conditions at the last three events.
“For us, it was a fantastic race, a fantastic Sunday again,” he said. “We are constantly first or second in the last three races, with three different type of circuits. Silverstone a very high-speed circuit, Valencia with heavy braking and the Nürburgring with slow-speed corners. Different temperatures at each too. Valencia hot, here nearly winter temperatures. So with all these conditions we saw our consistency and it puts us in a very good position to enjoy this final part of the championship.”
Webber was left to rue his lack of pace once Hamilton and Alonso had been released at the end of his second stint. “I think these guys just had that little extra margin when they needed to do it, especially at the back part of the stints,” he said. “They had a little bit more range and that made us a little bit exposed on strategy.”
After Vettel had recovered from his spin he found himself in a race-long battle with Ferrari’s Felipe Massa. The Brazilian defended superbly until the final lap when Ferrari and Red Bull brought them in for a mandatory switch to the medium compound Pirelli tyre. Red Bull Racing’s crew was the quicker, releasing Vettel while Ferrari were fumbling with wheel guns. It brought the German to fourth and 12 points to leave him 77 ahead of team-mate Webber.
“It looks like McLaren and Ferrari are getting quicker and quicker so we need to work harder on our car to try and improve it in order to be back on the podium and maybe stand on the top step again,” he said.
