http://www.planetf1.com/race-features/93...Hockenheim
In F1, the first person you have to beat is your team-mate.
Mercedes
Nico Rosberg 3 - Lewis Hamilton 7
Race: Hamilton
In the completely loco world of Team-Mate Wars, how did we get to this result, then? It's a bit like Maths GCSE, you have to show your working, you can't just give the result. Here goes: Rosberg and Hamilton had the same equipment in Q1 on Saturday and for a change, Hamilton was in control and it was Rosberg making the mistakes. Halfway through the sessions and Hamilton was sitting in P2, while Rosberg had blown two successive fast laps by running wide and was P21 to Lewis's P2. Then Lewis suffered an exploding brake disk and no further comparisons could be made.
In some races drivers lose front wing endplates and it ends up no great disadvantage. It was Hamilton's bad luck that at the one race where tyre wear was excessively high he had a front wing loss that grained the front left and gave him a lot of tyre deg. Given how quickly he closed the gap on Bottas it would have been interesting to see if changing the front wing would have got him P2.
Red Bull
Daniel Ricciardo 8 - Sebastian Vettel 2
Race: Ricciardo
Ricciardo qualified in front of Vettel and was forced into the manoeuvre that dropped him to P15 on Lap 1 by someone else's accident. This was one of the great drive's of the season and although Daniel didn't make it back to his team-mate, he was close.
Ferrari
Fernando Alonso 9 - Kimi Raikkonen 1
Race: Alonso
It was encouraging to see Kimi high up in one of the free practice sessions, but he lost out in qualifying and the different strategy didn't work. He lost his No Claims Bonus as well. Alonso clearly had no respect for his beeps and had to take extreme measures on the final lap by driving it in 8th gear.
McLaren
Jenson Button 7 - Kevin Magnussen 3
Race: Button
The BBC used the phrase "a disconsolate sounding Jenson Button" after qualifying, but you might as well apply that all the time. Nobody can explore the different nuances of "disconsolate sounding" better than Jenson. Magnussen paid heavily for a small first lap miscalculation - Turn 1 in Germany has always been a fairly hairy place and he didn't get away with keeping his foot in this time.
Williams
Valtteri Bottas 5 - Felipe Massa 5
Race: Bottas
Valtteri Bottas was ahead of Massa when Felipe had his accident and so takes the points. He also showed remarkable composure in the closing stages of the race under extreme pressure from Lewis Hamilton on very worn tyre