Superb win for Alonso as Vettel suffers penalty

Fernando Alonso took his third victory of the year in Germany today in a commanding fashion.

He may have had Sebastian Vettel then Jenson Button hot on his heels for most of the afternoon but he never looked unduly troubled throughout and opened up a lead of 34 points as we reached the halfway point of the season.

After qualifying on pole in the wet qualifying session, Alonso took the lead at the start and apart from pit stops was never headed during the race. He’s said afterwards his rivals were quicker and perhaps they were, but Ferrari has now got their car into a position where Alonso can make the difference to keep it firmly in the number one position.

The only major defence he had to make was from Lewis Hamilton when the McLaren driver was trying to unlap himself, something that intensely annoyed Vettel, but also something which is entirely allowed by the regulations so he can have no real complaints.

Every time either the Red Bull or McLaren got near him, Alonso gently eased out a bit more pace, just enough to fend off any attacks in the DRS zone. This race almost tells the story of the season so far, different rivals coming to challenge him, but Alonso is always there, always fighting near the top and taking the wins when he can.

It was an impressive drive and the rest are going to have to have that consistency and better if they want to hunt him down in the next 10 races.

Vettel’s penalty frustration

Vettel finished second but was given a drive-through penalty of 20 seconds added to his time after taking that place from Jenson Button on the penultimate lap by leaving the limits of the track. He has now been classified as fifth.

Vettel dived to the outside through the DRS zone into turn 4, Button was taking his line which involved moving over towards the kerbs. Now Vettel could have backed off and slotted in behind, but he chose to exceed the track limits and accelerate around the outside so as not to lose momentum and technically I would say passed him off the track.

This has now resulted in the penalty, however, moves like this have happened before countless times and not been penalised so to drop him to fifth seems overly harsh, but an action to just swap the positions round is not open to the stewards.

I guess at some point they have to lay down the rules and give a definitive answer that you can’t do this, but it could be argued why start now when they’ve been lenient before? Unfortunately for Vettel it shows the inconsistency of the stewards when it comes to applying penalties.

Not a good end to the weekend for Seb then, who seemed to be frustrated with a few things including his team mate Mark Webber holding him up in qualifying and Hamilton unlapping himself.

Perhaps Red Bull were even lucky to have started from where they qualified. This morning it was said that their Renault engines were shown to be running a torque map that could be trying to simulate off throttle exhaust blowing, but they got off on a technicality. That’ll be discussed some more no doubt.

Button’s back but Hamilton retires

Jenson Button finally showed up again this weekend. After a number of struggles over recent races, he was back on the pace, at least in the dry and looked to have the pace to beat Alonso with 10 laps remaining. Unfortunately for him his tyres went off and he fell into the clutches of Vettel. Still, it was a good result for him, especially now he has been given second place.  

Unfortunately for McLaren their main points gatherer in the first half of the season suffered a puncture after debris from Felipe Massa’s front wing on the opening lap destroyed what potentially could have been a good afternoon for Lewis Hamilton.

He started poorly, dropping a position but Button showed the pace was there as did he before eventually retiring 10 laps from the end. He’s now over two races wins in points behind Alonso but he can console himself that McLaren are still fighting and there’s still half the season to go. Nothing more can go wrong though.

Kimi ends up with a podium but he won’t be happy

Kimi Raikkonen in the Lotus has now been bumped up to third after crossing the line fourth. Kimi showed good pace and often matched the leaders lap times but was already too far away after starting from 10^th.

It was a charging performance from the Finn in the opening half of the race as he made some great moves on Paul di Resta and Michael Schumacher in particular. I doubt he’ll be happy though, only a win will do for Kimi. Romain Grosjean just had a terrible weekend, never looking overly competitive at all.

Sauber jumping to top of midfield fight

The final driver to benefit from Vettel’s penalty is Kamui Kobayashi. Fourth is now his best result to date and it was a great effort from both Sauber drivers, Sergio Perez came up from 17^th on the grid to finish in 6^th, Kamui himself gained eight places from his starting slot.

Their pace also matched the leaders for most of the race once they were free of traffic, it was only their inability to get the tyres working in the wet qualifying that perhaps caused them to lose an even better result.

Sauber are currently the inform midfield team, and if they can continue to develop and look after their tyres as they are doing, then more podiums and perhaps even a winner’s trophy could be on its way to their Swiss base.

Mercedes are beginning to look adrift and need some urgent race pace. Qualifying is still ok, at least in the wet as Michael Schumacher took a second consecutive second row start. But as in Silverstone he quickly fell off the pace of the leaders and it was as much as he could do to maintain seventh, although a searing pace towards the end as he stopped for fresh rubber gave him the fastest lap.

But the Mercedes was not kind on its tyres today, although despite also being on a three stop strategy, Nico Rosberg was able to get a point for 10^th after starting from 22^nd due to a poor Q2 and a grid penalty for changing the gearbox.

However, it’ll be a concern that they no longer seem able to challenge on race day and are even under threat from the midfield squads, especially Sauber and Williams. Much work to be done when we get to the summer break.

Nico Hulkenberg started 4^th finished 9^th, while his Force India team mate Paul di Resta started in the top 10 but fell down to 11^th. It was a similar problem to Mercedes, they had to do a three stopper as others just about made a two stopper work and it was too much to be able to come back through the field. A shame for Hulkenberg as from 4^th, he might have expected a few more points.

Webber drops points

Mark Webber took 8^th and four points to just about maintain second place in the championship. Not a good weekend, he qualified 3^rd but dropped five places due to a gear box change. From then on he was never really a contender and seemed to struggle on the medium compound he got after his first pit stop.

Still he salvaged some points, is still two points ahead of Vettel and will be looking forward to Hungary, a track he won on the last time he was a title contender.

Hungary is only a week away, so any down hearted spirits will be eager to resume battle and go into the summer break with a good result behind them. But come rain or shine, Fernando Alonso is there, on the pace waiting for his opportunities. At the moment he’s not letting anything slip through his grasp.

all photo's taken from autosport.com