2011 German Grand Prix - Hamilton secures thrilling German win

ECSTASY: Hamilton celebrates a great German success

LEWIS Hamilton used the cooler track temperatures at a very cold Nurburgring to win a thrilling German Grand Prix yesterday.  Hamilton produced a weekend of incredible performances to deliver his second win of the season, as Sebastian Vettel had an off-day infront of his partisan home supporters.  Vettel finished off the podium in fourth place, behind Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari and the pole sitter, Mark Webber. 

     Hamilton qualified a sensational second on the grid, with one of the best laps of his F1 career.  He started behind Mark Webber and took full advantage of another terrible getaway from the Aussie.  Hamilton charged into the first corner ahead of Webber, whilst Alonso eased inside Vettel for third place.  A lap later, the Spaniard ran wide onto a wet patch at turn three and allowed Vettel back past him.  Further back, Nick Heidfeld connected with Paul di Resta, spinning the Force India driver to the back of the pack.

EXIT: Heidfeld tangles with Buemi and makes a spectacular exit

     On lap eight, Alonso showed his stunning straight-line speed to maximum effect, as he closed down Vettel and cruised inside him into the first corner.  Two laps later, Vettel made a very uncharacteristic mistake.  He got on a white line, hit a wet puddle and spun away seven seconds at turn ten.  This mistake left him with little hope of catching the top three for the rest of the afternoon.  Fellow German Heidfeld was doing much worse.  The usually reliable Renault driver was squeezed off the track by Sebastian Buemi approaching the NGK chicane.  Heidfeld went briefly airborne and ended in the gravel trap.  Buemi picked up a puncture and was given the blame by the race stewards, meaning the Swiss driver carries a five-place grid penalty into next weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

     At the front, Hamilton’s early tyre advantage had disappeared and Webber was right on the back of the McLaren.  As the marshals were recovering Heidfeld’s crashed car, Lewis got distracted and went in too deep into the first apex of the chicane.  He was a sitting duck, as Webber angled himself inside Hamilton at the Coca Cola curve.  However, the Brit wasn’t finished and used the slipstream to duck back infront approaching the first corner.  Webber pitted shortly afterwards and used the ‘undercut’ on fresher tyres to steal the lead from Hamilton in the first round of pitstops.  The problems continued for Vettel, as he was overtaken by a slightly reluctant Felipe Massa.  The world champion spent the remainder of the afternoon staring at the back of the Ferrari’s exhaust.

     However, Webber couldn’t pull away from Hamilton and Alonso and an earlier second pitstop backfired, as he dropped to third.  In fact, Alonso briefly had the lead on lap 33, but Hamilton drove clean around the outside of his bitter rival into turn two and his sensational bravery landed him back the lead.  Whilst Hamilton was having a great weekend, Jenson Button was having a mere.  A dismal qualifying and a very poor start left him stuck behind Vitaly Petrov for most of the first stint of the race.  Although he briefly worked his way upto sixth, a hydraulic problem forced Button into the pits on lap 36 and into a second consecutive DNF. 

     The question now was how slow the prime medium compound tyre was going to be in comparison to the option tyre.  Petrov was the guinea pig and his quicker pace suggested that the drop-off wasn’t as bad as anticipated.  Hamilton pitted with nine laps to go and traffic forced Alonso’s hand early.  This ended the Spaniard’s hopes of back-to-back wins.  Webber tried to stay out longer, but his softer tyres were past their best and he got nailed down into third.  Attention switched then onto a final lap pit showdown between Massa and Vettel.  The Red Bull mechanics put in the quickest stop of the day and a slow Ferrari pitstop allowed Vettel to take fourth position again on the last lap.

     The way was clear for Hamilton to take his 16^th career victory and his first points finish, let alone podium result at the Nurburgring.  Alonso finished four seconds behind to collect his fourth podium in five races, whilst Webber was left disappointed by his lack of pace that left him down in third and stretches his winless drought to a year.  Vettel finished fourth; the first race he has finished off the podium since Korea last year.  Massa was fifth, whilst Adrian Sutil illuminated Force India’s underperforming season with a great drive to sixth place.  The two Mercedes of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher came seventh and eighth.  Schumacher wasn’t helped by a mid-race spin.  The final points went to the consistent Kamur Kobayashi and Petrov’s Renault.

     If McLaren and Ferrari can work together, we might still have a championship battle.  Sebastian Vettel showed some cracks in Germany and Hamilton and Alonso will be hoping to keep the pressure up in Budapest next weekend.