Lewis Hamilton won a tense three way battle for victory in the German Grand Prix, beating Fernando Alonso and the pole sitter Mark Webber. It was Hamilton’s second win of the season and the 16th of his career. It was a great weekend for Hamilton, his result set up by a stunning qualifying lap and a great start, where he took the lead from pole sitter Mark Webber on the run down to Turn 1. And the victory was topped off by his overtake on Alonso after the Spaniard had emerged ahead of him from his second pit stop. “If More…

The German Grand Prix at Hockenheim didn’t turn out the way many people expected for many reasons and there were some big decisions taken, which we will be talking about for some time. The two widely different tyres behaved far better than expected, leaving few tactical options to the teams, while Ferrari were more competitive than many had expected and were the centre of attention. They took a one-two finish, but not in the same order in which they ran for most of the race. But what was the mechanism by which this crucial decision was taken? If it had More…

Team orders returned to the top of the agenda in Formula 1 today as Fernando Alonso took the win in the German Grand Prix thanks to his team mate Felipe Massa letting him through in the closing stages, despite leading the race from the start. It is a tough moment for Massa and a hard call for the team to have to make. Although the message was coded it was unmistakeably a team order, which are banned in F1. The team will also know that Massa’s motivation will have been torpedoed by this moment. It was Alonso’s second win of More…

Sebastian Vettel took pole position for tomorrow’s German Grand Prix, by just 2/1000ths of a second from Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso in a fantastic qualifying battle. It was Vettel’s sixth pole of the season and the 11th in his 54 Grands Prix, a ratio of 20%. But the exciting thing was that Alonso and Ferrari had been the pace setter throughout qualifying, building on the improvement they showed in Silverstone. But on the final run, Vettel found two tenths of a second to edge out the Spaniard. It is a huge weekend for Vettel, who needs to get a win to More…

It was a tough day today for Lewis Hamilton and the signs are that McLaren face a tough weekend with its main opposition looking strong. The 2008 champion crashed in the rain in morning practice, hitting the tyre barriers hard and causing quite a bit of damage to his car. “It was very, very slippery, ” he said. “What was actually a relief was when I came back and everyone explained to me how it occurred. I hit the limiter and upshifted and I spun the wheels. Obviously a moment which I tried to correct and didn’t correct it well More…

This weekend’s German Grand Prix will be a home Grand Prix for no fewer than six drivers, by some margin the largest contingent from any country in the 24 man F1 field. Three of them are in the top eight cars on the grid. Eddie Irvine said at the weekend in a radio show I did with him that he thinks six – basically a quarter of the field – is too many and the quota should be reduced. He had his tongue in his cheek at the time. The reason for the high number is of course the interest More…

I’m interested in a few things which are developing for this weekend’s German Grand Prix at Hockenheim. One is the weather, which looks wet for Friday and Saturday and then quite cool on Sunday at just 22 degrees. Another is the tyre choice, with super soft tyres at one end of the range and the hard tyre at the other end. This is in itself the first time we have had such a range, which will make things very interesting from a strategy point of view as their operating ranges are very different. We could have another Montreal on our More…