Vettel wins on home ground!

Sebastian Vettel has won the German Grand Prix in front of an ecstatic home crowd at the Nürburgring. Leading from the first corner, Vettel would surrender the lead of the race only whilst pit stops took place, dominating throughout with those behind unable to get close enough to seriously challenge at any point.

The Lotus duo of Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean took second and third respectively on the podium, rounding off a strong and impressive weekend for the Enstone based outfit.

Despite a last lap push by Fernando Alonso, he was unable to pass Grosjean for third, and would settle for fourth scoring the only championship points for Ferrari this weekend. Pole started Lewis Hamilton finished fifth after a daring overtaking manoeuvre on the outside of Button on the final lap whilst both McLaren’s finished with points this weekend; Button in sixth and Perez in eight.

The McLaren duo were split by the Red Bull of Mark Webber, who fought back from the back of the grid to finish seventh overall. Nico Rosberg and Nico Hulkenberg rounded out the top ten as the chequered flag fell.

Lewis Hamilton’s pole position start last just seconds as the lights went out to start the German Grand Prix; he had lost two positions by the time he had reached the first corner as both Red Bull cars of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber passed him off the mark.

As Sebastian Vettel pulled out in the lead with teammate Mark Webber in second, the pack organised themselves behind in preparation for the first bought of pit stops. The top six starters on the grid would start on the soft compounds, with the remaining four top ten using the medium Pirelli’s, showing that each team and drivers’ race strategy differed from the beginning, depending on their grid position.

Felipe Massa became the first non-finisher of the race after spinning his car going into turn one five laps into the race. The anti-stall failed to kick in and Massa’s race was over. Massa soon told the team the engine had failed and shut off whilst trying to go through the gears.

Mark Webber’s race suffered when a rear right wheel failure brought a brief end to the Australian’s last Formula 1 race at the Nürburgring. Stopping for the first time of the day, Red Bull were slow to fix Webber’s wheel to the car. Soon after releasing him from his delayed stop, the wheel separated from the car, hitting a cameraman in the pit lane and leading the team to instruct Webber to turn off the engine. His car was then pushed back down the pit lane and into the garage, but would later return to the race, albeit a lap down. The cameraman was taken to the medical centre with a concussion and chest pain, but otherwise ok.

Retirements aside, the German Grand Prix as per usual offered some terrific racing to the drivers and fans alike. Kimi Raikkonen and Nico Rosberg had a spectacular on-track battle which ultimately resulted in Raikkonen overtaking Rosberg in stunning fashion going into the chicane on lap 14. Even with DRS available to him on the pit straight, Rosberg was unable to fight back and would pit two laps later.

Likely the most surprising and shocking part of the race came on lap 23 when Jules Bianchi retired with an engine failure. Bianchi pulled the car over near to the final chicane with the engine on fire. Having evacuated the car and the marshals taken care of the first, the onsite recovery crane moved in the remove the retired car when the Marussia started to roll backwards across the track and to the other side. Luckily the incident did not cause any collisions or accidents, but the Safety Car was deployed in order to prevent any further incident with the unruly Marussia.

A full seven laps of the Safety Car lap led race later and the race was back underway with Vettel leading following in hot pursuit by the Lotus cars of Grosjean and Raikkonen – Grosjean had earlier told the team that he was ‘faster than Kimi’ and proved so by staying well ahead of his Finnish teammate.

The Lotus cars looked able to keep up with the pace of Vettel’s Red Bull, and with medium compound Pirelli tyres that were 5 laps newer than the medium’s fitted to Vettel’s car it looked as though Grosjean would have the pace and tyres needed to overtake Vettel on track. But unable to do so, and with Vettel finding pace once more, Lotus pit Grosjean with 19 laps left in the race, leaving Raikkonen to bear down on race leader Sebastian Vettel.

Red Bull would respond on the next lap, stopping Vettel for another set of medium compounds to see him to the end of the race. The faultless stop would also see Vettel return to the race just ahead of Grosjean as Raikkonen stayed out to lead the race for a few laps.

The final few laps of the race saw relatively little action in comparison to earlier in the day, with routine pit stops and a handful of position changes taking place as those in P4 or less battled for Championship points available to the final top ten.

Both Force India drivers failed to score any points in what will be regarded as a disappointing weekend for the team. Not seeming to lack pace, it was race strategy that would once more let the team down.

Williams 600th career race went looked to be going somewhat better than their qualifying sessions went when Maldonado was able to hold on to seventh place going into the last ten laps of the race. However, pitting on lap 51 of 60, Maldonado would suffer a delayed stop when the front right wheel gun failed and the team could not remove the tyre. Finally able to get the new tyre on, Maldonado rejoined the race in P16 and would finish in 15th. Bottas was also unable to score any points after a late pit stop for his second of the afternoon say the Finn cross the finish line P16 behind his teammate.

Further down the field, and both Caterham cars once again finished the full race; van der Garde placing 17th whilst teammate Charles Pic finished in last placed 19th. The sole remaining Marussia of Max Chilton split the Caterhams in 18th.

Sebastian Vettel now leads the Drivers’ World Championship by a full race win ahead of second placed Fernando Alonso, whilst Kimi Raikkonen remains third. Red Bull racing retain the lead of the Constructors’ World Championship and Mercedes move into second thanks to the points scored by both Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg this weekend.

The Formula 1 calendar resumes three weeks from now on the weekend of July 26 – 28, for the Formula 1 Magyar Nagydij 2013 in Budapest.