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Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso converted his pole position in Germany to a
third victory this year, extending his championship lead. It was also the
Spaniard’s 22nd consecutive points finish. Alonso used a two-stop strategy
to control the race, only losing the lead when he made his pit stops. Red
Bull’s Sebastian Vettel passed McLaren driver Jenson Button with two laps to
go to claim second place, in yet another close finish.
After a wet qualifying session, the drivers were given free choice of
starting on the P Zero White medium or P Zero Yellow soft: the two compounds
nominated for the German Grand Prix. The top 10 qualifiers, led by Ferrari’s
Fernando Alonso, all started on the soft tyre with just five cars starting
on the medium: the Sauber of Kamui Kobayashi, the Toro Rosso of Jean-Eric
Vergne, the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg (who started 21st on the grid following
a gearbox change penalty) and the two Marussias of Timo Glock and Charles
Pic.
The race got underway in ambient temperatures of 21 degrees centigrade, with
the teams having limited information about the slick tyres at Hockenheim
following two days of intermittent rain. This meant however that most
drivers had their full allocation of practically unused soft tyres
available, which had only run in the final free practice session on Saturday
– as well as in Q1 for some teams.
Alonso held the lead from the beginning, while pit stop strategy gained
Jenson Button a place on his third and final stop on lap 40, when he pitted
a lap earlier than Alonso and Vettel for his final set of mediums. The two
leaders reacted by pitting one lap later for the same compound, but Button’s
lap in the meantime was fast enough for him to ‘undercut’ Vettel and move
into second. However, Vettel was able to get past Button with a dramatic
move in the closing stages.
Button’s team mate Lewis Hamilton was less fortunate: following a puncture
caused by debris, Hamilton made an early pit stop and rejoined at the back,
putting him out of sync with the frontrunners. Such was the benefit of
Hamilton’s fresh tyres though that he was able to pass the leaders – who
were on a different strategy – straight after making his pit stop, despite
being a lap down: a perfect demonstration of how important it is to be on
the right tyre at the right time.
The top six all adopted a two-stop strategy, with Michael Schumacher, who
made a late stop for soft tyres, the highest-placed three-stopper in seventh
– having also set fastest lap. His team mate Nico Rosberg also used a
three-stop strategy to make up 11 places and finish 10th, taking the final
drivers’ point.
Pirelli’s motorsport director Paul Hembery commented: “The teams had
to take quite a flexible approach to their strategies, with so little dry
running up to today, and as a result we saw a wide variety of ideas and
tactics coming into play. The strategies meant that we saw an extremely
finely balanced race, with the leaders rarely separated by more than a
handful of seconds. With 20 laps still to go the top three were covered by
less than three seconds and it stayed close to the end. The majority of
teams opted for a two stop strategy, running their two final stints on the
medium tyre. The last stint was particularly crucial, with the drivers
having to look after their tyres carefully in order to ensure consistent
performance all the way to the finish. The top three drivers all showed
great determination to maximise the potential of the medium tyres to the
end.” |
