Nico Rosberg has
extended his championship lead by winning his home grand prix, using a
two-stop strategy with one stint on the P Zero Red supersoft followed by two
stints on the P Zero Yellow soft tyre. It was the first time that Rosberg
had ever finished on the podium at the German Grand Prix, but the 300th
podium finish for Williams, courtesy of Valtteri Bottas – on the podium for
the third consecutive time.
Rosberg’s team mate Lewis Hamilton made up 17 places by finishing third,
having started from 20th on the grid due to an accident in qualifying.
Hamilton moved from a two to a three-stop strategy in the race, starting
with two stints on the soft tyre and using the extra speed of the supersoft
for his final two stints. His last supersoft tyre stint was 17 laps, during
which he set fastest lap. This enabled him to close up to Bottas in the
closing stages and finish only 22 seconds behind Rosberg, despite a damaged
front wing.
The frontrunners on the grid all started on the supersoft tyre, which was
around a second per lap faster than the soft tyre. Track temperatures were
more than 20 degrees centigrade lower than they had been over the past two
days, giving the teams a new dimension, but the expected risk of rain did
not materialise. The drivers were able to push as hard as they could with
some very close racing from start to finish: the gap at the end between
Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo in fifth and sixth
was less than a tenth of a second, after 306 kilometres of racing.
Pirelli’s motorsport director Paul Hembery said: “With conditions
being a lot cooler than they had been previously, the teams were working in
a somewhat unknown area when it came to tyre behaviour compared to the
previous two days. We saw plenty of close racing – sometimes very close
racing – that also affected tyre wear and degradation. As expected there
were between two and three pit stops, with two of the podium finishers,
including the winner, stopping just twice. Although he stopped one more time
than his direct rivals, Hamilton’s strategy allowed him to come right into
contention from a long way down the grid. Our choice of the soft and
supersoft ensured plenty of action and some exciting battles from start to
finish, despite several different strategies being played out.”
Truth-O-Meter:
We said that either a two or three stopper was possible, with a two-stop
supersoft-supersoft-soft strategy most likely, stopping on laps 18 and 38.
Rosberg adopted a slightly different strategy, starting on the supersoft and
completing two stints on the soft tyre, making his first stop on lap 15 and
his second stop on lap 41. |