F1 - German GP - Sunday, July 20th 2014

Rosberg cruises to victory, Hamilton recovers to third

By Ben Anderson
http://www.autosport.com

Nico Rosberg extended his lead in the Formula 1 world championship with a comfortable victory in the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim.

The Mercedes driver converted pole position into his fourth win of the season, while the Williams of Valtteri Bottas fended off the second Mercedes of Rosberg's title rival Lewis Hamilton to finish second.

Hamilton fought his way through the field to finish third from 20th on the grid, following his brake-failure-induced crash in qualifying.

Hamilton's journey to the podium was fraught with peril, as the 2008 world champion survived repeated contact at the Turn 4 hairpin as he raced his way through the pack.

Hamilton got away with hitting Adrian Sutil's Sauber and Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari, but slightly damaged his front wing after a late dive up the inside of Jenson Button's McLaren.

This compromised his second stint on Pirelli's soft tyre and meant Mercedes had to bring its charger in earlier than planned for his second of three pitstops.

Hamilton made up the time lost in the pits but took too much out of his final set of tyres and fell short of claiming second spot from Bottas by just 1.7 seconds.


Bottas executed a two-stop strategy to claim his third consecutive podium finish for Williams after starting second, but team-mate Felipe Massa only made it to the first corner before contact with Kevin Magnussen's fast-starting McLaren tipped the Williams into a race-ending roll, and meant the first lap finished behind the safety car.

Magnussen, who started fourth and was trying to pass Massa for third when they came together, fell to the back of the field, while the incident also delayed Daniel Ricciardo's Red Bull, which had to take avoiding action across the Turn 1 run-off.

This incident promoted world champion Sebastian Vettel to third on the road, and the Red Bull racer converted that into a fourth placed finish after another battle with Fernando Alonso's Ferrari.

Alonso was another driver who tried to make a two-stop strategy work, but the Spaniard could not manage it and a late third stop dropped him out of the top six.

He passed Jenson Button's McLaren for sixth with relative ease, but found the recovering Red Bull of Ricciardo a more obstinate obstacle.

The Australian defended hard, but Alonso - running on the faster super-soft tyre - eventually fought his way past four laps from the finish.

Ricciardo came back at the Ferrari on the final lap, though, and fell just eight hundredths of a second shy of stealing fifth back on the run to the finish line.

Button lost seventh to Nico Hulkenberg's Force India after being forced to make a very late third tyre stop, while McLaren team-mate Magnussen salvaged ninth after his first-lap incident.

Sergio Perez claimed the final point for 10th place in the second Force India, ahead of the second Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen, who twice survived contact while being passed into the Turn 4 hairpin - once with Hamilton and also with Vettel.

Results - 67 laps 

Pos Driver                Team                   Time/Gap
 1. Nico Rosberg          Mercedes               1h33m42.914s
 2. Valtteri Bottas       Williams-Mercedes      +20.789s  
 3. Lewis Hamilton        Mercedes               +22.530s  
 4. Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault       +44.014s  
 5. Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                +52.467s  
 6. Daniel Ricciardo      Red Bull-Renault       +52.549s  
 7. Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes   +1m04.178s
 8. Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes       +1m24.711s
 9. Kevin Magnussen       McLaren-Mercedes       -1 lap
10. Sergio Perez          Force India-Mercedes   -1 lap
11. Kimi Raikkonen        Ferrari                -1 lap
12. Pastor Maldonado      Lotus-Renault          -1 lap
13. Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Renault     -1 lap
14. Esteban Gutierrez     Sauber-Ferrari         -1 lap
15. Jules Bianchi         Marussia-Ferrari       -1 lap
16. Kamui Kobayashi       Caterham-Renault       -2 laps
17. Max Chilton           Marussia-Ferrari       -2 laps
18. Marcus Ericsson       Caterham-Renault       -2 laps


Retirements

    Adrian Sutil          Sauber-Ferrari         47 laps
    Daniil Kvyat          Toro Rosso-Renault     44 laps
    Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault          26 laps
    Felipe Massa          Williams-Mercedes       0 laps

Drivers' championship             Constructors' championship
 1. Nico Rosberg        190       1. Mercedes              366
 2. Lewis Hamilton      176       2. Red Bull-Renault      188
 3. Daniel Ricciardo    106       3. Williams-Mercedes     121
 4. Fernando Alonso     97        4. Ferrari               116
 5. Valtteri Bottas     91        5. Force India-Mercedes  98 
 6. Sebastian Vettel    82        6. McLaren-Mercedes      96 
 7. Nico Hülkenberg     69        7. Toro Rosso-Renault    15 
 8. Jenson Button       59        8. Lotus-Renault         8  
 9. Kevin Magnussen     37        9. Marussia-Ferrari      2  
10. Felipe Massa        30       10. Sauber-Ferrari        0  
11. Sergio Pérez        29       11. Caterham-Renault      0  
12. Kimi Räikkönen      19 
13. Jean-Éric Vergne    9  
14. Romain Grosjean     8  
15. Daniil Kvyat        6  
16. Jules Bianchi       2