Race
Vettel bounced back from his disappointment at Silverstone to drive to a tough win in front of his home fans for the first time. He held off a somewhat unexpected charge from the two Lotus cars as they found great pace in the bright sunshine and high temperatures, resisting a strong late charge from Raikkonen as he yet again led start to finish after stealing the lead in the first corner. The German Grand Prix was an eventful race that really came to life in the middle and went to the flag. Tyres were on the agenda but in a different way, as they degraded in different manners and impacted the strategy as they were always intended to, and in another way with the incident involving Mark Webbers pit stop. The safety car featured again as a recently extinguished Marussia rolled back across the track in front of the leaders, all contributing to an exciting race to follow up from Britain. The Front Runners Sebastian Vettel made his move right from the start to out-drag Hamiltons Mercedes to the first corner, stealing the apex and then breaking away at the front. From there he drove a managed, fairly uneventful race at the front as he looked after his tyres, putting in the speed when he had to in order to fend off the charge of both Lotus cars to take the win. Mark Webber had a great start, and was going very fast in the opening laps, but in his first stop there was a problem with his rear right wheel, which flew off as he pulled away. The wheel struck cameraman Paul Allen heavily, who was tended to at the track and then airlifted to hospital for observation. Webber was wheeled back to the garage and then sent back out, almost two laps down. He drove hard though, and gained from the safety car to un-lap himself, driving from the back to take points in seventh by the chequered flag. Red Bull picked up a 30,000 fine for the unsafe release. Lotus leapt back to the front of the grid in style as they made the most of the hot weather and maximised their cars performance. Raikkonen took second and Grosjean third for a repeat of the Bahrain podium, with Lotus running a split strategy on tyres to give Raikkonen a late charge at the leader, but it wasnt to be. It was still a great day for the team, taking 33 points for the constructors to keep them well out of reach of Force India in fifth and close on Ferrari for third. Ferraris race went wrong very quickly; Felipe Massa made another great start to leapfrog Ricciardo and get into sixth place, however on lap four he spun into turn one when the rear wheels locked up under braking as the gearbox stuck in fifth gear and stalled the engine, taking him out of a promising position. Fernando Alonso had a better afternoon, which early on didnt go so well as he struggled for pace and the strategic choice to start on medium tyres didnt play out effectively. He was more competitive later though, and in a final charge on soft tyres he almost got onto the podium, and was generally pleased to finish close to the leaders after starting from eighth place, picking up 12 points in fourth. Mercedes weekend didnt go as planned as Lewis Hamilton was mugged off the start by both Red Bull cars, and from there he was unable to challenge and slipped backwards in the second stint as he struggled on his tyres. He battled through and managed to make a late charge to come through the pack on better tyres, overtaking Jenson Button on the last lap to finish fifth. Button drove a strong race with pace quite close to the four teams ahead, and he enjoyed racing nearer the front again. The safety car didnt help his strategy, and at the end the two Caterhams held him up as he tried to lap them, costing him time that arguably cost him fifth place. Overall he was happy with his points though and felt they got the best from the car. Perez found a lot better pace in the sister McLaren, and got the tyres to work more effectively but disappointingly lost out to Mark Webber at the very end to finish eighth. Nico Hulkenberg enjoyed a busy race, fighting every lap through a tough race to tenth place and a point. The car didnt feel as good as he hoped, and they werent able to challenge the McLarens ahead, but they still had a solid race and got points for the second in a row.