Hamilton grabs win as Rosberg slips up at home

2016 German Grand Prix summary

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Lewis Hamilton cruised to victory in the German Grand Prix after taking the lead from his team mate at the start.

German Grand Prix in pictures
Pole sitter Nico Rosberg got away slowly and was passed by both Red Bulls, which he spent the rest of the race scrapping with.

However an altercation with Max Verstappen at the hairpin led to Rosberg receiving a five-second time penalty. He served it at his final pit stop which left him running to the end behind the two RB12s.

Daniel Ricciardo took second place after falling behind his team mate at the start. Red Bull had their drivers exchange positions at one point to ensure both benefited from Rosberg’s delay.

A slow pit stop for Kimi Raikkonen dropped him to sixth place behind team mate Sebastian Vettel. Nico Hulkenberg took seventh ahead of Jenson Button after Valtteri Bottas fell back to ninth place on fading tyres in the final laps,

Sergio Perez took the final point ahead of Esteban Gutierrez. The only retirements were Felipe Massa, who was hit by Jolyon Palmer at the start, and Felipe Nasr, whose Sauber stopped in the final laps.

2016 German Grand Prix

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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40 comments on “Hamilton grabs win as Rosberg slips up at home”

  1. Maybe Nico will finally learn how to turn right. :P

  2. WTH. How will Nico respond now? Relying on Lewis’ penalties?? Of all the races he had to respond since Lewis’ run, this was the most important and critical of them all. But now, after that penalty, even though I do not want to share my view, he should learn that he needs to improve his racecraft because he has gotten 2 penalty points, 10 seconds and another 5 seconds from similar moves.

    Ferrari think they are challenging Mercedes? It looked like as if Red Bull was quicker in the end than Mercedes, unless Lewis was in ultra conservation mode and Nico as well.. But it looked quite exciting at the end when Ricciardo started closing in. Then Lewis responded with his pace…

    1. There’s no doubt that Hamilton was managing race pace at the end, the same can’t be said for Rosberg.

      I wonder why? Hmm…

    2. In pretty sure that Rosberg is aware of his poor racecraft and are doing everything he can to improve it.

  3. Nico first needs to sort his steering wheel as on cameras it looks like not turning when he says he has full lock. His steering wheel is cheating him, I think. On his hands, it is fully locked but on cameras it shows not turned at all :)

    1. He was full lock when he turned for the corner. He turned the wheel late because he had to adjust his braking into the corner. Why? Because Verstappen moved in the braking zone again

      1. Rosberg got the penalty because he ran verstappen off the track. Why does he keep the wheel straight for so long ? His intention wasn’t to keep Verstappen on the outside, it was to give him nowhere to go. Good penalty.

        1. Agreed. There is difference between gradually running a driver off traxk- which again is intentional- and deliberating doing it by keeping the wheel straight and then turning. That’s just leaving the smoking gun right there for the police (stewards) to nab you.

      2. @glue Strange how Rosberg keeps making this move, but it’s always the other drivers fault. And then he tries to lie about it. When its obvious for the world to see.

        The thing is, the stewards are catching on to Rosberg and his ways, and are calling him out on it – and penalizing him. The rest of us have seen this from a long time ago, but of course as to be expected, the Rosberg fans deny it vehemently.

        Unfortunately, I see the situation as getting worse as we go forward, because as Rosberg gets more desperate in his championship fight, he probably will cause more infringements. Or to put it another way, he will try and cheat more.

      3. Fudge Ahmed (@)
        1st August 2016, 14:35

        You sound like someone who would have used the dog ate my homework excuse with a straight face in school.

        Dirty driving by Nico and blatantly leaving no room to even rejoin the track.

  4. I think that it’s time to promote Pascal Wehrlein into the Mercedes seat and drop Rosberg to Manor.

    1. Manor aren’t that stupid.

      1. +1. Good laugh. Nearly spat my pint on my keyboard lol.

      2. +1 Good one! :)

        1. ROTFL! Good one for real!

      3. Savage

    2. Rosberg is a very good driver but he is not as good as his team mate.
      I must say that Ham’s ability to deliver is exactly why Mercedes needs him and also why I don’t support Toto Wolff’s equalisation policy. Slashes of brightness does not a star make. It has to glow constantly.
      If Ham were not driving that Mercedes, it would have easily been a Redbull 1-2. This makes me wonder how many wins Mercedes would have lost without Lewis at the wheels.
      I see Mercedes going the Mclaren route thinking it is the car alone and that they have a better driver who is equally fast and “media friendly”.

      1. * Flashes of

      2. Indeed, Rosberg is a perfectly fine driver for when they are dominating and will have an easy 1-2. When actually battling on track with other competitors, drivers like Hamilton and Alonso make the difference.

        That Merc was still a lot faster than the Red Bulls, but Rosberg just couldn’t make it happen while Hamilton demonstrated he had a lot of extra pace in the car when the gap threatened to decrease.

  5. And the driver of the day is … wait…wait… Nico Rosberg!!! I mean the worst driver of the day; to lose a race like that and let the bulls in front of you, it’s just terrible! He is also the worst driver of the year, 43 points lead gone to 19 in Hamilton’s favor, terrible Nico… Also it looks like he doesn’t learn from mistakes, that overtake looked like Austria to me, very bad…

  6. Regarding the Rosberg penalty. I think there is a difference between not turning the wheel (a la Rosberg in Austria not quite sure about Germany) and gradually running a driver out of space. Hamilton did this text book like many times in Bahrain 2014. You give the other driver room alongside but gradually shut the door. Rosberg keeps ploughing on AND THEN TURNS. Therein lies the difference for me. This page explains it quite well for me under Case 1: Bahrain 2014. f1metrics.wordpress.com/2014/08/28/the-rules-of-racing/.

    Otherwise great win by Lewis, great start ( I assume he has sorted them out) and Ricciardo was rapid today. I would say RIC was DOTD.

  7. Sem (@05abrahamsemere)
    31st July 2016, 15:09

    I think we can safely say Alonso is past his prime….unfortunately he hasn’t looked very impressive against Button. A shame as I would have liked to have seen Alonno battling it out with Hamilton, Vettel, Riccardio and Verstappen…

    1. I don’t think that Alonso is past his prime. It’s just that Button is really good and capable of beating anyone. I remember many people saying that Alonso will trash Button but so far it hasn’t happened and they are pretty much equal.

      1. Every of his teammates except Takuma Sato are said going to beat Button, only no one really did (except on his early years). People just can’t accept Button is a well deserved and underrated World Champion because BrawnGP dominate first half of the season.

        1. to be fair Button was beat in 2010 and 2012. I know JB fans like to cling on to the “outscoring” mantra, but he was beat in both those years. That’s not to say he didn’t hold his own of course.

          1. Fair enough. But barely (because, hey, still got more total points in the end ;) beaten by someone who on his way becoming one of the greatest F1 driver of all time is not bad at all. He still much better than any young driver people seems to suggest replacing him with.

    2. Wait really? Alonso has been without doubt ahead of button this season. Alonso had to save fuel at the end

  8. Shout out to 2 great Britons today: Lewis and Jenson.
    Of course Button not less valuable than Alonso and much less toxic.

    1. +1. I have questioned for a while now whether Fernando is still at the peak of his powers since 2014.

  9. You mean his tires where not at the prime

  10. Rosberg lollll.
    Anyone still thinks Rosberg>Hamilton? if so, i don’t know what else to say. just explain why.
    Start? Awful
    Racing? Average
    Pushing people off track? Hamilton is just so much better. fluid af.

    1. Are you sure that is that a recognised measurement of “fluid”?

  11. What is going on with the Ferraris? That radio message, Kimi’s pit stop? This season has been a horror show.

  12. The start of ROS was far from ideal, but the front of the left coloumn lost positions (positions 1-6) to the starters of the right coloumn, although the rubbered racing line was on the left coloumn. Seems to be a very weird anomaly, and makes me think that Rosberg would have lost at least 1 place even if he does his best at the start. Was it a coincidence, bad luck, or pole position just doesn’t really provide the advantage to its holder?

    1. Two, stages of the start, The immediate get away and then the first corner.
      Daniel only lost out because he was crowded by both Mercedes drivers. I’d say he made the best start.

  13. the closer RBR get, the better chances Lewis has of lifting the championship.

    1. +1. Rosberg is just so vulnerable in wheel to wheel combat.

  14. I had to make some apologies to those in the same room as me when Rosberg cam eon the radio saying he was on full lock so he shouldn’t get a penalty, the fíng liar.

    If he wants to do that to other drivers he needs to study how other drivers do it, by taking a longer and wider line and gradually closing the door, not just driving straight on and turning in when it is clear that he has cut the other driver up.

    He will only win this WDC if Hamilton suffers from reliability and cant recover from engine penalties or breaks up with his girlfriend. All he can do is just keep plodding along and hope that something happens to hamiliton.

  15. Although there are some great existing and up and coming drivers it seem’s that Nico is not being appreciated for his results this season as much as some of the others. Is this because it would be expected for them to do better if they were in his position with the most dominant car? I myself am happy whoever the most deserving racer/manufacturer takes it.

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