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

Lewis Hamilton scores Pole for Mercedes in Germany

Lewis Hamilton snatches the pole position in Germany for the German team.

It was an interesting formula one qualifying in Germany. In the Q1, only Redbull and Mercedes used medium tyres, and all the other teams had to resort to soft tyres to qualify. The soft tyre is about 1.5 seconds faster than the medium tyres. This shows that Mercedes and Redbull have an edge over others in this circuit.

Eliminations in Q1 in German Grand Prix

The usual suspects were eliminated in the Q1, namely:
Valtteri Bottas and Pastor Maldonado, Charles Pic, Jules Bianchi, Geido Van der Garde, Max Chilton. There was slightly nearly four and half seconds difference between the fastest and the slowest car in Q1.

Sergio Perez was in danger of not qualifying for Q2 as he was down at 18th position before he put together a lap in the dying seconds of Q1 to move into Q2.

Intense drama in Q2 in German Grand Prix 2013

There was lot of drama in the Q2
In the Q2, the Red Bull team kept their drivers in their garage and released them with about five and half minutes remaining what appeared to be for a single run. They appeared to be saving their soft tyres. Vettel and Webber posted identical sector times in S1 and S2 but webber scored a slower S3 and as a result Vettel took P1 position in Q2 ahead of Hamilton and Webber.

Mercedes decided not to run their drivers again as they were initially 1-2. However, in the dying seconds of Q2, Grosjean came ahead of Hamilton and then Alonso scored a provisional P1 to be just inched by his team mate Felipe Massa. Then Ricciardo, Hulkenberg and Jenson Button all pushed through to push out Nico Rosberg out of Q3. Kimi Raikkonen did a flyer to score P2 in Q2 in the last few seconds. The difference between Hamilton was 1:30.152 and Rosberg 1:30.326

Drivers eliminated in Q2 in F1 German Grand Prix 2013

11. Nico Rosberg Mercedes
12. Paul di Resta Force India
13. Sergio Perez McLaren
14. Esteban Gutierrez Sauber
15. Adrian Sutil Force India
16. Jean Eric Vergne Toro Rosso

In Q3, both the Ferrari drivers and Jenson Button of McLaren came out on medium tyres. Perhaps they expect the soft tyre not to last only for a short time so that they will get advantage if they use a medium tyre.

There was a fight for the pole as Vettel went fractionally ahead of Hamilton with a great third sector. However, Hamilton hit back by knocking off 0.2 seconds in the first sector, matching Vettel in the second sector and again besting him in the third sector. So Lewis Hamilton scored 1:29.398 seconds to Sebastian Vettel’s time of 1:29.501 seconds. It was a happy moment for Mercedes as they got the Pole in Germany, their home country. The German fans roared when Lewis Hamilton scored the pole. The blow of Nico Rosberg, a german driver of Mercedes not qualifying for the Q3 was forgotten.

Mark Webber or Red Bull scored P3 with a time of 1:29.608 followed by Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus who scored 1:29.892. Both of them will start in the second row.

Romain Grosjean of Lotus scored P5 with time of 1:29.959 and Daniel Ricciardo of Toro Rosso scored P6 with 1:30.528.

Felipe Massa of Ferrari came ahead of his teammate Fernando Alonso for the 7th and 8th positions with times of 1:31.126 and 1:31.209 respectively.

Jenson Button of McLaren and Nico Hulkenberg of Sauber didn’t register a time. This allows them to choose a tyre ie. both of them can either start with soft tyre or medium tyres.

It is a proud moment for Nico Hulkenberg, another German, to be on P10 as his previous races this year are forgettable.

It would be a very interesting race tomorrow in the F1 German Grand Prix 2013

Revised Classification of German Grand Prix results

Sebastian Vettel has been penalised by the German Grand Prix stewards for his overtaking of Jenson Button after leaving the track on lap 66 Vettel has been penalised by adding 20 seconds to his time. Accordingly he drops down to 5th. Jenson Button becomes second and Kimi Raikkonen becomes 3rd. Kamui Kobayashi becomes 4th.

The revised Classification for German Grand Prix is as follows:

Position	Name	Team
1	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari
2	Jenson Button	McLaren
3	Kimi Raikkonen	Lotus
4	Kamui Kobayashi	sauber
5	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull
6	Sergio Perez	Sauber
7	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes
8	Mark Webber	Red Bull
9	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India
10	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes
11	Paul di Resta	Force India
12	Felipe Massa	Ferrari
13	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso
14	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso
15	Pastor Maldonado	Williams
16	Vitaly Petrov	Caterham
17	Bruno Senna	Williams
18	Romain Grosjean	Lotus
19	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham
20	Charles Pic	Marussia
21	Pedro de la Rosa	HRT
22	Timo Glock	Marussia
23	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT
RET	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren

Alonso wins from pole in German Grand Prix 2012

Alonso wins from Pole in German Grand Prix 2102

In a close race, Alonso kept his composure and won despite being challenged at one point by Jenson Button.

In the opening lap, Sebastian Vettel was challenged by Michael Schumacher. However, Alonso and Vettel quickly pulled away and Schumacher appeared to be driving a lone race at No. 3 till Jenson Button appeared in the scene and overtook him. Michael Schumacher used a three stop strategy and finished at 7th position. He posted the fastest lap times at the end after changing into soft tires, however he despite being on the tail of Sergio Perez finished at No. 3.

Sebastian Vettel controversially overtook Jenson Button "off the race track". McLaren team was heard on the radio saying "FIA is away". However, Vettel's overtaking is being investigated by FIA and the result of the investigation will be known later.

India's Narain Karthikeyan finished 23rd. Lewis Hamilton of McLaren etired. With Alonso winning the German Grand Prix, he retains the lead in the drivers championship.

Position	Name	Team
1	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari
2	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull
3	Jenson Button	McLaren
4	Kimi Raikkonen	Lotus
5	Kamui Kobayashi	sauber
6	Sergio Perez	Sauber
7	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes
8	Mark Webber	Red Bull
9	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India
10	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes
11	Paul di Resta	Force India
12	Felipe Massa	Ferrari
13	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso
14	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso
15	Pastor Maldonado	Williams
16	Vitaly Petrov	Caterham
17	Bruno Senna	Williams
18	Romain Grosjean	Lotus
19	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham
20	Charles Pic	Marussia
21	Pedro de la Rosa	HRT
22	Timo Glock	Marussia
23	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT
RET	Lewis Hamilton

Illegal engine mapping by Red Bull team in Hockenheim

Illegal engine mapping by Red Bull in Hockenheim

In the German Grand Prix 2012 in Hockenheim, Red Bull is under investigation for illegal engine mapping. Jo Bauer, steward in Hockenheim said that upon inspection it was found that the Red Bull cars which qualified 2nd and 3rd had different engine characteristics. In the mid rpm range, they had much lower maximum torque levels as compared to other races. This is a clear violation because, FIA had stipulated that engine characteristics cannot be changed from race to race.

Jo Bauer said "in my opinion this is therefore in breech of Article 5.5.3 of the Technical regulations as the engines are able to deliver more torque at a given engine speed in the mid rpm range." He said that the new torque map will artificially alter the aerodynamics of the cars "in contravention of Technical Directive 036-11"

FIA had placed severe restrictions on engine maps after the exhaust-blown diffuser saga. Further information is awaited.

EDIT: After a meeting with Red Bull and Renault representatives and after they examined the ECU data, the stewards of Hockenheim concluded that the map presented doesn't breach the text of the Article 5.5.3. However, the stewards didn't accept all the arguments of the team.