Formula 1 — German Grand Prix
Hockenheimring. Situated at Hockenhiem the place where it all started. Our love for four wheels. The land of the Automobiles. The land of BMW, Porsche, Audi, VW and Mercedes.
What a race! Drama filled, exciting, tense. Thoroughly enjoyable.
The race was pretty clean, with everyone off the line with decent pace. Ricciardo was struggling initially being on the hardest tyre available trying to go the whole race distance. That was pretty evident as Lewis was passing everyone and Ricciardo was struggling to do the same.
Sebastian Vettel pulled a pretty decent lead in the front and barring safety car or rain, he seemed like he would keep pulling away at the front.
From the back, Lewis Hamilton was charging through the field, quickly passing one or two cars almost every lap. He had incredible pace on the soft tyres. The fact that he was able to carry that pace till the end of his stint ( 40 Laps ) while everyone else was struggling on the ultras was fantastic to see.
It was about 45th Lap that the rain was predicted but instead of a continuous downpour, it was damp in some sections of the track (especially turn 2, 3 and 6). It was really difficult conditions with half of the track bone dry while the other half wet. Those who switched onto the intermediate tyres were doing fine in those turns while absolutely cooking their tyres on the dry sections.
It was absolute chaos from then on, with some drivers switching on to the inters to go straight back in for slicks, while those on slicks absolutely struggling on the damp sections. Many did go off track but someone had to crash, that unfortunate man had to be race leader Sebastian Vettel.
As much as it was unfortunate for Seb, partly the reason for him losing control was down to the package as well. Some cars were seriously affected while the others Mercedes were still reasonably strong in those mixed conditions.
From then on, it looked like Mercedes could win on home soil, and that’s exactly what they did. As they say, one man’s bad luck is another man’s fortune.
Look forward to watching Hungary. Redbull look strong, but I still think it will be pretty close at the top.
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