Race Report: Lewis Dialed in to Deutschland

Lewis Hamilton absolutely dominated the German Grand Prix. He was on pole, he was the fastest man on track, but due to some questionable strategy when the Safety Car came out he had to work harder, but he did the job and recorded his fourth win of the season to take a four point lead in the world championship. Second was Nelson Piquet, and third was Felipe Massa. The race was really one of two halves. At the start Lewis led from Massa and Kovalainen and Lewis proceeded to pull away comfortably from Massa. The race settled into a rhythm with very little overtaking, although there were some close battles, when the safety car came out on lap 35 for Timo Glock submitting his entry for biggest crash of the year which really spiced things up. While the safety car seemingly ruined Lewis's race, it fell right into the hands of the one stopping Nelson Piquet. Piquet pittted the lap before the Safety Car and so did not have to pit again while most of the frontrunners did. The only notable frontrunners not to stop were Hamilton and Nick Heidfeld. The decision not to pit Hamilton puzzled many, including this blogger because it seemed as though McLaren were throwing the race away needlessly. Martin Brundle and James Allen theorized that it had to do with tires, seeing as Lewis had to use soft ones for his final stint and the McLaren is harder on those tyres than the Ferrari is. Either way Lewis had a lot of work to do as his main rival in the race, Massa, was fourth in the queue behind Hamilton, Heidfeld, and Piquet. When the race restarted Lewis had to put the hammer down Schumacher style to attempt to pull out a 22 second lead in approximately 10 laps. Lewis was helped by the fact that Massa was stuck behind Piquet, but the Ferrari man was never really in position to challenge Piquet and so Lewis rocketed away in the distance. Nobody outside of McLaren knew how far Lewis could go and the answer cam with 17 to go and Lewis pitted with a 15.4 second gap over Massa. The Englishman emerged behind his teammate Heikki Kovalainen in fifth place and everyone wondered, has McLaren screwed this up or are we on for a grandstand finish. The answer, fortunately for the spectators, was the latter as Lewis was quickly released by Kovalainen, moved up to third when Heidfeld pitted from the lead, and then closed on Massa. The move on Massa came with 11 laps to go as Lewis got into Felipe's slipstream on on the run towards the Hairpin. Felipe looked as though he was going to stay to the inside but then suddenly went left, opening the door for Lewis who proceeded to bravely out0brake his rival. Massa tried to defend but Hamilton had the optimal line at the exit and Massa went wide, Massa tried to retake Hamilton around the outside two corners later but Lewis was having none of it and Massa was forced wide and dropped back. From then he had no hope of winning as Hamilton rocketed off after Piquet, who was driving brilliantly out front. Hamilton closed rapidly and two laps later he was right on Nelson's tail at the same spot and out-braked the Renault driver. Piquet sensibly did not put up too much of a fight and slotted into second. From then Hamilton cruised to victory and Piquet came home a comfortable second ahead of Massa, who was too busy holding off a spirited charge from Heidfeld to try to challenge Piquet up front. It was a fortuitous podium for Piquet, but when he senses it was a possibility he drove brillitantly, like the Nelson Piquet we were hoping to see from the start of the year and this just may have been a job saving performance. Massa on the other hand will leave Germany with even more question marks over his head after a ratehr limp performance, especially after the restart. If Lewis's drive was one that wins world championships, Felipe's was one which loses them. Massa is now four points behind Hamilton and the momentum seems to have shifted towards Mclaren after a slowish start to the season for the silver cars. Hamilton is driving with all the confidence in the world while the Ferraris seem to be looking a little frustrated and bewildered, Luca di Montezemelo will not be a happy man. Fourth place was a good result for Nick Heidfeld. The German has been out-performed rather badly in qualifying by his teammate, but in the last two races he has shown that he still is a very cagey racer. He started 12th with a heavy fuel load and pitted for plenty of fuel. He did not stop behind the safety car and then drove away from Piquet at the restart. When Hamilton made his final stop Heidfeld was less than five seconds back and managed to emerge ahead of Kovalainen after his stop. He finished the day right on Felipe Massa's rear wing but in the closing laps he decided not to press the issue too much, preferring to bring the car home for some quality points. Teammate Robert Kubica was not as good but stayed out of trouble to come home seventh and collect two points. One senses that his world championship aspirations are slipping away. Kovalainen was fifth in the second McLaren and will probably be disappointed by the result. He was third for most of the pre-safety car period but he was undone by the caution as both Heidfeld and Piquet emerged ahead of him. He had to yield for Hamilton but was decidedly ordinary after the restart in general and Heidfeld managed to stay ahead of him. Kovalainen ended up fighting with sixth placed Kimi Raikkonen at the end, but Heikki is now 30 points behind his teammate and the rumour mill is churning about him possibly being out of a job at Mclaren for 2009. Sixth was not exactly where world champion Kimi Raikkonen would have wanted to be, but the Finn was really in no-mans land for most of the weekend. He only qualified sixth and lost a place at the start and was stuck in seventh until he made up a place at the pitstops but on a track where overtaking is possible we should have seen him really challenging the slower cars ahead of him. The safety car came out, putting Kimi down to ninth and it was like a light switch was turned on somewhere as Kimi suddenly decided he wanted to race again and set off passing people. First he got by Fernando Alonso (more on his adventures later), and then by Sebastien Vettel, and finally swooped by Kubica to take sixth. He could not get by Kovalainen in the end but he was mighty exciting to watch in the final laps. Kimi is still only seven points behind Hamilton and as we saw last year he can really turn it on late in the season and he is definetly still in the running for the World Championship and judging by his fighting spirit in part of this race he looks to be a better candidate for the title than Massa is. Torro Rosso had a pretty good day with Sebastein Vettel getting a point for eighth and with Bourdais bringing it home in twelfth. Vettel had an exciting afternoon, spending much of it battling with Fernando Alonso, drawing the ire of the two time champion by pushig him wide at the exit of the pits during the safety car period. Vettel also was in the way as Raikonen passed Alonso and was then passed by Kimi on the following lap and was also passed by Jarno Trulli along the way. He got his eighth back when Trulli ran wide with a few laps to go and so scored his sixth point of the year. Bourdais had an unexciting afternoon and that seems to be his problem at the moment as the pressure mounts on the Frenchman. Trulli ended up ninth to finish a rather disappointing afternoon for Toyota. Trulli had started fourth but lost a place on lap 1. He was only average considering that he did not have the low fuel load in qualifying that we all had assumed he had. He ended up eighth but threw away a point with a silly error while teammate Timo Glock had the most dramatic accident we have seen in a while when his rear suspension failed on the exit of the final corner pitching the German into the pitwall at high speed. The Toyota was smashed and Timo speared across the race track leaving debris everywhere and coming to a rest on the outside of the track. Timo was winded and stunned but otherwise unhurt but it was obvious that the safety car was needed to clean up the mess. It was an unfortunate end to what had been a pretty good race up to that point with Timo running third at one point due to running very heavy and pitting late, he probably could have gotten a couple of points. Williams were equally disappointing althogh Nico Rosberg brought it home tenth while Kaz Nakajima having a much more eventful afternoon than necessary with a spin and running wide once, he ended up fifteenth of the seventeen runners. Red Bull also did not have a particularly notable afternoon. Mark Webber seemed to be up to his usual trick of quietly getting a point or two until his engine expired behind the Safety Car while David Coulthard was racing all afternoon with the Hondas. He was involved in the second most dramatic incident in the race when he collided with the overly excited Rubens Barichello, which broke both their front wings. DC continued and finsihed thirteenth while Barichello's damage was too much and he had to retire. The Incident was probably Rubens's fault, but it was hard to say really at that point. If Red Bull were bad, Honda were awful with both Barichello and Jenson Button well down the order. They did make it onto the screen a few times for their battles with each other and with Coulthard but while Rubens ended with an accident, Jenson ended up last of the runners having not taken the opportunity to get his lap back for some reason and was the only man a lap down while the Force India cars were slow as usual but stayed out of trouble (and off the TV screens) to come home fourteenth and sixteenth, Fisichella ahead of Sutil. Finally a word about Fernando Alonso who had an overly eventful day and ended up finishing eleventh from fifth on the grid. He spent the first part of the race squabbling with Trulli over fifth place. He lost out to Raikkonen and Heidfeld at the first round of stops and found himself fighting with Vettel. The nearly collided at the exit of the pits under the safety car, making Fernando a very angry boy. after that the Irate Spaniard seemed to have lost concentration and slipped down the order. He was so concerned with Vettel that he did not pay attention to Raikkonen who swooped past, unfortunately Fernado was so frustrated that he went wide at the exit of the hairpin and let Rosberg slip through. From then the demoralized spaniard cruised home under pressure from the other Toro Rosso of Seb Bourdais. This race ended up being really exciting, but it took a safety car to make it so and due to the nature of the track, being one where you can pass, there was some passing. Lewis Hamilton seemed determined all day that he would not lose this race, despite the adversity of having to pass people on the track. He has all sorts of momentum in the second half of the season and Ferrari will need to find something or Lewis will rocket away with the world championship.