I got home from the summer cottage right on time to see the start. Hamilton started to the race from P20. The Briton had been handed a 5-place grid penalty due to a gearbox change, which meant he was dropped from P16 to P21 but since Sauber´s Gutierrez had also got, a grid penalty due to his collision at Silverstone it was P20 for Hamilton. Rosberg could easily maintain his lead at the start but behind the German the first corner was very eventful. Magnussen in his McLaren collided with Massa at the wheel of his Williams, which caused Massa´s Williams to flow over and the Brazilian´s race was over! Another very frustrating DNF for Massa and really not the first one this season. Magnussen on the other hand was able to continue the race. Safety car was deployed but it came in only a couple of laps later and the race was back on.
By this time Hamilton had already made his way up from P20 to P14 and the Briton´s pace was almost timitating! Hamilton had no difficulties to overtake his rivals and snatch position by position. Bottas drove in P2 but it soon became obvious that the Finn had no chance to match Rosberg´s pace. Kimi at the wheel of his F14T had been able to jump a few positions at the start but on lap 13 the Iceman lost an end plate of his front wing when Hamilton passed him. This damage influenced significantly Kimi´s race from then on in terms of tyre management. Only a couple of later Kimi lost another piece of his front wing as he got hit by Vettel when both Vettel and Alonso overtook the Finn after their pit stops.
Kimi had started to the race on the yellow-marked soft tyres whilst all other top drivers (except Hamilton) had started on the supersofts. This meant Kimi pitted some laps later than his rivals. After his pit stop Kimi showed some impressive overtaking moves as he passed Sutil, Grosjean, Perez and Vergne. At this point it seemed that this could turn out to be a decent race for Kimi... At the halfway point of the race there were pieces flying from Hamilton´s front wing as he attacked to overtake Button in his McLaren but couldn´t avoid hitting his fellow countryman. Hamilton was clearly on a hunt: he was absolutely determined to make it to the 2nd place.
Ferrari had obviously planned a 2-stop strategy for Kimi but on lap 34 Kimi told on the team radio in a very firm voice that "We have to stop now, we have to stop now, the front tyres are gone!" There was a dramatic moment on lap 46 as Kvyat´s Toro Rosso suddenly caught fire and there were huge flames coming from the back of the Russian´s car! Luckily Kvyat managed to get quickly out of his car. Another incident occurred only a few laps later when Sutil in his Sauber lost control of his car and span on the main straight but no safety car was deployed in spite of the fact that the car was in the middle of the main straight.
When there were 10 laps to go Rosberg was leading the race out of everybody else´s reach. Bottas at the wheel of his FW36 was second, Hamilton 3rd, Vettel 4th, Alonso 5th and Ricciardo 6th. Hamilton started storming closer and closer to Bottas on a fresh set of supersoft tyres. When there were only a few seconds between Hamilton and Bottas Hamilton was told on the team radio that Bottas should be an easy catch. I considered that quite an arrogant comment from the Mercedes team... It turned out that it was easy for Hamilton to close the gap to Bottas but overtaking the flying Finn was a whole different thing! There was also another intense wheel-banging battle going on as Ricciardo in his Red Bull and Alonso in his Ferrari fought for the fifth place. Finally Alonso managed to overtake the Australian and take the 5th place.
Rosberg took a dominant win on his home soil which was the first time when a German driver in a German car won on the German soil since the 1930´s so a historical race in that regard! Hamilton was unable to make any overtaking move on Bottas, who drove an absolutely impressive race finishing 2nd! And this time he actually beat one of the Mercedes cars by driving, not due to a technical failure! Bottas is going through staggering momentum at the moment and this was already the third podium in a row for the young and lightning-fast Finn! Hamilton ended up 3rd, which can also be considered quite an achievement in terms of his starting position... Vettel finished 4th, which was a very decent job from the German in front of his home crowd but naturally I would have preferred to see him on the podium! Alonso finished 5th, Ricciardo 6th (finally Sebastian finished the race ahead of his team-mate although Ricciardo lost many positions on the opening lap due to the Massa-Magnussen incident), Hulkenberg 7th, Button 8th, Magnussen 9th and Perez 10th. Kimi had a very frustrating race and the Iceman finished 11th. Not exactly the result I wanted to see...
So at the moment Rosberg has a 14-point lead in the championship standings over his team-mate Hamilton. Ricciardo is now 3rd but he´s already 84 points off Rosberg! The battle continues already next weekend when it´s time for the Hungarian GP before the summer break. Can´t wait to see Kimi and Sebastian back in action again.
Ei kommentteja:
Lähetä kommentti