Sunday, July 7, 2013

Vettel beats Kimi Raikkonen to win German GP

Vettel beats Raikkonen to win German Grand Prix


Sebastian Vettel bounced back from retirement in Silverstone to score a win in Germany to further extend his lead in the Formula 1 championship.

Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen were in touching distance of each other. However, Vettel could manage to keep Kimi behind and won the race by just a second. This was the first time Sebastian Vettel won his home race.

Sebastian Vettel was second behind Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes in the starting grid, but made a strong start and grabbed the lead in the first corner. Romain Grosjean of Lotus made some good attempts to grab the lead from Vettel, but couldn’t succeed. However, the tyre explosion saga in Silverstone and the subsequent tyre changes for the German GP had ensured that Red Bull had a good pace here. Vettel managed to hold off both the Lotus cars and Grosjean later finished in the podium in the third place by just managing to hold off Fernando Alonso of Ferrari.

Mark Webber’s luck was not on his side as the Red Bull team made an egregious pitstop error and failed to tighten his right rear wheel when he pitted in lap 9. As a result the right rear wheel came out and hit a cameraman in the pits. The cameraman had bruises and laceartions in the body and is in hospital under observation. This blunder by the Red Bull team ensured that Webber was down by a lap when he again joined the race. However, a safety car caused by the retirement of Marussia car of Jules Bianchi resulted in Mark Webber able to catch up with others. Mark Webber finished in seventh. However, he is being investigated for unsafe release. It is to be seen if Webber will be penalised and demoted or only the team will be penalised.

Lewis Hamilton who was on pole sadly finished on 5th. Luck is not in his side as despite being on pole he has not been able to record race wins. He was also slowed down as his team mate Nico Rosberg held him up despite being on a different strategy. At times your teammate is your worst enemy, especially if he is Nico Rosberg. Lewis Hamilton also couldn’t take the advantage of Safety car like his rivals. In Lap 23 Jules Bianchi retired just after Lewis Hamilton had made his pitstop. Fate can be cruel.

Jenson Button of McLaren who started on 9th position finished on 6th position.
Button’s teammate Sergio Perez finished on 8th position followed by Nico Rosberg of Mercedes in 9th and Nico Hulkenberg of Sauber in 10th.

Unsafe release:
Paul di Resta finished in 11th. Di Resta’s unsafe release in lap 5 will be investigated after the race. He was released when Vergne was there and they managed to avoid each other.

Daniel Ricciardo who had shown much promise in the qualifying finished in 12th. Adrian Sutil of Force India finished in 13th. Esteban Gutierrez of Sauber finished in 14th followed by Pastor Maldonado and Valtteri Bottas of Williams in 15th and 16th position. They were followed by perennial backbenchers Charels Pic, Giedo van der Garde and Max Chilton

Retirements in German Grand Prix


Jean Eric Vergne
Jules Bianchi
Felipe Massa

Fastest lap in German Grand Prix

Fernando Alonso of Ferrari had the honour of scoring the fastest lap in the race in lap 51 with a time of 1:33.468








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