Na een enerverende race heeft Rosberg zijn thuisrace op zijn naam geschreven.
Echt spannend werd het niet voor Rosberg. De hele race reed hij onbedreigd aan kop. Grootste concurrent, teamgenoot Hamilton, startte van ver weg. Door een crash in de kwalificatie en een bakwissel moest hij genoegen nemen met de 20e startplaats. Dat weerhield hem echter niet om een weergaloze inhaalrace te rijden, wat hem de laatste trede van het podium opleverde.
Ook in deze race liet het team van Williams zien dat ze de zaken goed op orde hebben. Met de 2e en 3e startpositie en een Bottas, die voor de derde keer op rij op het podium eindigde.
Teamgenoot Massa had minder geluk. Al in de eerste bocht van de eerste ronde van de race werd hij aangereden door Magnussen. Na een spectaculaire koprol kwam zijn race, net als de vorige race in Engeland, voortijdig tot een einde.
Lotus maakte in deze race opnieuw weinig indruk. Maldonado evenaarde met de 12e plaats nog wel zijn beste resultaat dit seizoen, maar Grosjean viel uit met koelproblemen.
Lotus F1
A difficult weekend in Germany saw progress for Lotus F1 Team as race pace took an uplift relative to the opposition after a trying first qualifying session without a hydraulically connected suspension system.
Pastor equalled his best result of the season with twelfth, whilst Romain retired his E22 due to a cooling issue, with both cars logging top ten appropriate lap times.
Not only did the improved pace help the duo’s competitiveness, but so did the continuation of tyre longevity with Pastor taking a two stop strategy after strong tyre management, as many of his competitors took three stops.
Both drivers made good starts, even with the turn one collision of William’s Felipe Massa and McLaren’s Kevin Magnussen mixing up the order.
In the case of Romain, the strong start was cruelly ended after 26 laps when a cooling system issue forced him to retire from the race.
Romain Grosjean, DNF
“Our overall pace was quite good today. I suffered from a loss of power due to an issue with our cooling system so I was asked to switch off the car. It’s such a shame as we were on a different strategy from our rivals so we looked like we could be on course for scoring points.”
Pastor raced on, and drove well to move up to twelfth before the chequered flag of the 67 lap race, despite running on tyres fitted on the 38th lap.
Pastor Maldonado, P12
“It was a tough race from the beginning; the incident in turn one was quite tricky to avoid but then the pace looked consistent. I did my best to manage the tyre degradation, which was quite high, and we were able to do only two stops. Today’s lower temperature helped us there as well. The initial plan included three stops but we had a competitive first stint so we went for plan B which worked well for us today.”
Despite the difficulties, Deputy Team Principal Federico Gastaldi believed the race showed the strength of the team’s spirit:
"There was great evidence of the team’s spirit over the whole weekend in Hockenheim. We had good race strategies and looked to be managing the tyres well with the pit stop crew making some fantastically fast tyre changes during the course of the race.”
De volgende race is op 27 juli in Hongarije
