Patronise F1

In the distant past it has been suggested, by gin-addled writers not a million miles away from the authorship of this very article, that Formula One championship fights tend to work best in a straightforward head-to-head setup. The suggestion being that no matter how bonkers the 2010 multi-way fight that dominated the championship was, a more traditional duel such as Senna/Prost, Hakkinen/Schumacher or even Button/Barrichello Alonso/Raikkonen makes for a better championship overall, whether you paint it as good versus evil or eyebrows versus monosyllabic speech.

But maybe - just maybe - that grand unified theory of Formula One was all a big load of stupid codswallop, which admittedly wouldn't be all that shocking given a certain someone's track record for codswallop, especially if the standalone example of the 2011 German Grand Prix is anything to go by. The first half of the race was an absorbing three-way scrap between drivers from F1's three form teams of the last couple of seasons, with Lewis Hamilton (McLaren), Mark Webber (Red Bull) and Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) going at it with each other at a jaw-dropping pace.

In the end, the frenetic fight couldn't quite be maintained to the bitter end, as the knife-edge battle slowly petered out when it became obvious that rumours of the Pirelli medium tyre's soporific pace had been greatly exaggerated. But the fact that the sting was eventually taken out of the race just past half distance was entirely thanks to an inspired third stint on the soft tyres from Hamilton, who extended a decisive lead at a critical point to put an end the challenge of his rivals. When all was said and done, like a partially-chewed VHS recording of a Michael Jackson concert, we ended up getting half a thriller, which is still a pretty good return by Formula One standards.

Practice and Qualifying

Throughout the practice sessions ahead of the more important stuff, there was actually precious little sign that Hamilton would be a factor, with few people believing that McLaren's insistence that their lack of decent lap times was not a cause for alarm and merely part of their programme for the weekend. Especially given the team's relatively dismal efforts at Valencia and Silverstone. But, with McLaren ignoring the headlines, Friday's pair of sessions saw the fight at the front become the sole preserve of Red Bull and Ferrari, or more specifically of Alonso and Webber.

The Spaniard led the way in FP1 on Friday morning, making the perfect start to the weekend after his first win of the season at Silverstone two weeks previously by continuing from approximately where he left off. He finished the session clear of Webber's Red Bull, with our doe-eyed runaway points leader Sebastian Vettel a slightly subdued third, unknowingly at the time setting what would become the theme for the rest of his weekend.

In the Friday afternoon session though, Webber hit back, topping the session by a fraction under two tenths of a second from Alonso, with Vettel again keeping a watching brief in third. Meanwhile, the McLarens were looking slow, with Hamilton and Button fading to 7th and 11th respectively by the end of the faster second practice session and even suffering the ignominy of not managing to outpace the Mercedes GP cars.

After his best impression of the Sauber team on Friday, Vettel briefly broke away from the ominous spectre of utter anonymity to top the final hour of practice on Saturday morning, albeit after Webber appeared to get a smidge of traffic on his own qualifying simulation from none other than Vettel himself. Alonso continued to keep pace with the Red Bull duo in third, while McLaren were starting to come to the party, as Hamilton finished a more impressive-looking fourth.

For the qualifying session itself though, Webber found no traffic issues, and the Australian continued his mini-burst of Vettelian form on Saturday afternoons all of a sudden with his second pole position in a row. More remarkable than him keeping Vettel off pole position again was the fact that Hamilton, with a blistering lap of his own, kept the German off the front row of the grid entirely.

Such was the scale of his sudden and sensational turn of pace that even Hamilton's usually forthright ego couldn't readily explain the situation. "I don't really know where I found the time," he admitted afterwards, shortly after hinting that the lap may have been the front row qualifying lap of someone or other's life, "To be honest I'm going to get a recording of the onboard footage and watch it back because I'd love to see it!"

One man that wouldn't have liked to see it was Vettel, as for the first time all season-long, and for the first time in 15 races overall, the German could not manage a top two spot. Instead, he was forced to settle for the unfamiliar surroundings of the second row of the grid in third place, tucked up next to Alonso, with the Spaniard not able to replicate his top-two form from Friday when it mattered in what turned out to be the most keenly-contested qualifying session of the season so far, with each of the top four giving their all for once.

Felipe Massa was a dutifully average fifth in the second Ferrari, because no matter how surprising qualifying sometimes is, some things never change. He was joined on the third row of Sunday's grid by Nico Rosberg, who perched his Mercedes precariously high up the grid in 6th and relegated an unhappy Jenson Button down to 7th place, alongside an impressive Adrian Sutil in eighth.

There was some minor admin issues for the FIA to sort out after the qualifying session, with Toro Rosso driver Sebastien Buemi being relegated to the back of the grid after falling foul of a fuel irregularity. That promoted everyone initially behind him up a spot, leaving F1 returnee Karun Chandhok, in his one-off Team Lotus appearence, in 20th place, while HRT loanee Daniel Ricciardo made it off the back row in only his second race, qualifying last in the session but moving up thanks to Buemi's penalty and his team mate Tonio Liuzzi taking a five-place grid drop for a gearbox change.

The Race

For a third time in 2011 then, the Australian nation watched with ever-jangling nerves as Mark Webber led the field around on the formation lap. And for the third time in 2011 that jangling gave way to yet more sad sighs of discontent, as he once again failed to keep the lead as far as the first corner. The Australian bogged down badly at the start, appearing to almost flick his car into neutral, such was the oddly jarring state of his getaway, and Hamilton surged ahead down towards turn one unchallenged.

Webber fought back after his latest dropped bollock to maintain second place through turn one, weaving his way in front of Vettel to keep the place. The German then found himself uncomfortably boxed in between the two Ferraris as they ran through the first corner, and he was forced to cede third to Alonso in favour of keeping Massa behind him. That then has the knock-on effect of delaying the Brazilian driver, who went on to lose a place to Rosberg and he formed up in sixth ahead of Sutil, Vitaly Petrov's Renault, Michael Schumacher's Mercedes and Button's McLaren, the 2009 champion having made a dreadful start from 7th.

Meanwhile, there was some rare (for 2011 anyway) contact in the first corner, as Nick Heidfeld successfully ruined any thoughts that he and Force India's Paul di Resta had of scoring a few points with a clumsy move which helped relegate them both to the back of the field. The incident didn't require any form of safety car, with both drivers rejoining, and Hamilton set about extending an early lead over Webber and Alonso. Vettel's early stint running out of even the podium places didn't last much longer than a lap, as Alonso made a simple error in turn three on lap two which allowed the German to regain his starting position, while further back Schumacher passed Petrov into the first complex to take 8th.

The squabbling behind allowed Hamilton to surge ahead in the early stages of the first stint, and it was out to two seconds by the end of lap three, but the Australian inexorably began to reel him in and maintained a watching brief a second or so behind the McLaren, extending a comfortable advantage over his still-disappointing team mate as he did. Vettel was clearly struggling to stay with the Australian, for the first time all season, and Alonso proved just how much the points leader was off the pace on lap 8, when he eschewed the DRS zone by getting the pass done down the start-finish straight and into turn one to regain fourth. 

From there, Alonso galloped up to the back of Webber, and by lap 12, the top three were less than two seconds apart. Also by now, it was very much a three-way fight, after Vettel lost seven seconds with a spectacular spin at turn 10, hooking a wheel on the astroturf, which was damp from some pre-race drizzle and ruining his first set of Pirellis with a smoky trip into the run-off area. He continued without losing a place, but was now some 13 seconds behind the race leader, and never looked like getting back into contention throughout the rest of the afternoon. All very odd. 

So then there were three at the front, but the action was plenty frenetic even without the championship leader. Webber applied the pressure as Hamilton predictably started to reach the end of the useful phase of his first set of tyres before his rivals, and managed to get alongside on the run into the final corner at the end of lap 12 when Hamilton messed up his braking for the Veedol chicane. But Webber had a sideways squirm midway through the long final right-hander, which gave Hamilton the momentum he needed to re-pass the Australian down the start-finish straight, though not before Webber had officially chalked up a lap in the lead in 2011 at long last as they flashed across the line.

Two frustrating laps later, and with Alonso now right behind him in the absorbing three-way train at the front of the order, Webber kicked off the first pit stop window in an effort to utilise the 'undercut' to jump his rivals, helped into his decision when he badly locked-up his front-left wheel defending from Alonso into turn one at the start of the lap. And it was a tactic that would pay off, even though he emerged into traffic when he rejoined behind Sutil. But he quickly passed the German, and then closed in on the fight between Vettel and Massa in front of him, the Ferrari driver having picked off Rosberg into turn one a few laps previously.

The Brazilian got past the ailing championship leader into the Veedol chicane, at the same time that Hamilton and Alonso pitted together on lap 16. Webber quickly followed Massa through as Vettel gave up the ghost and peeled into the pits for his own stop, and then there was a heart-stopping run into turn one, with Massa and Webber fighting for position as Hamilton and Alonso slotted back onto the track. For a moment, they were almost three abreast as they hit the braking zone, but it was Massa who led from Webber, from Hamilton and Alonso, meaning that as the Brazilian made his own stop at the end of lap 17, the Red Bull driver had secured the lead.

Webber struggled to extend much of an advantage, true to the action so far, but by the end of lap 25, he led by 1.4 seconds from the British driver, with Alonso a similar distance behind in third. Massa was now fourth, ahead of Vettel but some 25 seconds down the road, while Rosberg was now a lonely 6th, and under pressure from Sutil and Button, who had both gained time and track position by doing a good job of extending the life of their first set of tyres in order to run a two-stop strategy. Schumacher remained ninth for Mercedes, with Kamui Kobayashi now up to tenth in his Sauber, moving up from 17th on the grid thanks to a strong start and opening stint. 

There was little change to the order as the second stints ticked by, but it made the scrap at the front no less engaging, with the trio of drivers running line astern. Still, a theory seems to be developing that the race was increasingly looking like it would be called on strategy, rather than any particular dice for the race lead. That theory would be blown out of the water with some epic scrapping throughout the second pit stop window, which Webber kicked off at the end of lap 30, in an effort to extend his lead using the fresher rubber.

A lap later, Hamilton was in from what appeared to be a temporary lead, and Webber's tactic seemed to have failed, as Hamilton emerged ahead of the Australian as he went into turn one. But the McLaren went slightly deep into the first corner on cold tyres, and Webber, with a lap of running in his rubber, went around the outside into turn two. The cars ran side-by-side through the corner, but Hamilton put a determined move to gently manoeuvre Webber ever so slightly off the road and claim the place.

Alonso was now in the lead though, and the Spaniard was in the next time by, emerging in the lead thanks to the other two drivers losing a bit of time in their squabble. But like Hamilton a lap before, Alonso went too deep into the first corner and the McLaren man, who had clearly been taking notes on Webber's preferred line the previous time around, went for the outside line into turn two, succeeding where the Red Bull man had failed to take the lead of the race in spectacular fashion.

That set up the decisive stint of the race, with Hamilton then pounding in some larger than life lap times on his fresh rubber. Just a couple of laps after he wrested the lead off Alonso, he was 2.7 seconds up the road, with Webber falling back from the rear of Alonso's Ferrari in similar fashion. Although Alonso eventually got the lead pegged around the three second mark, the McLaren now had breathing room over the chasing pair, and could now concentrate on the final hurdle for him to overcome in pursuit of a second race win in 2011, the switch to the medium Pirelli.

The supposed 'prime' compound for the weekend had been seen as offering a huge performance drop-off throughout practice, with teams finding the harder tyre lost them around 1.5 seconds a lap throughout practice. Before the race, Pirelli themselves had predicted teams leaving the final mandatory switch to the second compound until the last possible moment, and the frontrunners ran on and on towards the final laps without showing any sign of flinching and taking the secondary compound.

The bite was taken out of that particular issue by, of all people, Petrov in his Renault. The Russian driver was the first of the runners to tackle the prime on lap 48, and promptly responded with his personal best lap on his first full tour on the rubber. When Hamilton was inevitably forced to pit first to replace his degrading softs, suddenly there was no real concerns that the minor strategic hindrance would threaten his lead, to the point that Alonso all but called off the scrap when he pitted for his own mediums a lap later.

And so the status quo remained. Although Webber stayed out until lap 57 in a futile effort to try and extract as much from the softs as possible, Hamilton and Alonso were matching his times lap by lap to ensure that when the Australian pitted for the final time, he emerged still behind his two foes. From there on, Hamilton continued through to take a delightful race win, just under four seconds clear of Alonso at the end of the final tour, with Webber forced to settle for third.

The one big scrap during the final last-gasp pit stops came in the fight for fourth place. Vettel had spent most of the race stuck behind the second Ferrari of Massa, after the Brazilian retained the place at the second stops despite a minor lock-up into turn one. Vettel's frustration was showing, after he short-cut the Veedol chicane at the end of that lap, but then he spent almost all of the rest of the race impotently staring at the rear wing of Massa's car.

In the end, the desperate effort to see who would blink first nearly saw the pair of them forget to make their final stop. Vettel was told to do the opposite to Massa on the approach to the pit lane on lap 58 of 60, but for whatever reason he didn't, and followed the Brazilian around for another tour. That left the odd sight of a pit stop battle on the final lap between the Ferrari and Red Bull crews, and if there was any doubt that Vettel has lived a charmed life at times in 2011, the German got the jump on his rival thanks to a sticky wheel nut on Massa's car.

The championship leader, then, took fourth, fractions ahead of Massa, to complete a largely anonymous drive in front of his home fans. His worst result of the season - and his first outside the top two - saw his championship lead trimmed to a still-dominant 77 points, and it will take a few more scary results than this before he start to get really nervous.

Adrian Sutil followed Massa home in sixth, a triumphant result for the two-stopper, who managed to run one of the quietest race performances in the history of time, but still secured Force India's best result of the season, ahead of the disappointed pair of Mercedes cars, with Rosberg struggling throughout the second half of the race and slipping down to seventh place, and Schumacher putting in a decent recovery drive after he had matched Vettel's spin at turn ten back on lap 24 to take 8th.

Ninth was Kamui Kobayashi, the Japanese driver running strongly all race after his super-strong start, enjoying a few scraps with the likes of Rosberg throughout the second half of the race, and securing more points for the Sauber team. Petrov took the final point, dropping down slightly from his early position after struggling to make a two-stop strategy work and losing time fighting with the Mercedes cars.

Outside the points came Sauber's Sergio Perez, whose race was hamstrung when he was forced to pit inside the first ten laps to replace a badly flat-spotted tyre. Jaime Alguersuari had a quiet run to 12th in his Toro Rosso, ahead of the recovering di Resta, who ran down the order all race after his first lap Ickle-ing, and Pastor Maldonado's Williams.

Sebastien Buemi was 15th, after being involved in an incident with Heidfeld of his own. On the run into the Veedol chicane on lap 10, the recovering German tried to take the outside line into the corner to get past the Swiss driver, but Buemi wasn't paying attention, drifted across into the Renault and forced Heidfeld into a high-speed and scary accident across the grass run-off and gravel trap, to become the first retirement of the race.

Heikki Kovalainen won the 'Class B' battle by the best part of a lap from Timo Glock and Jerome d'Ambrosio in the pair of Virgins, while Daniel Ricciardo took another 19th place in his second race, having scrapped with d'Ambrosio throughout the race. He also beat a competitior home for the first time, as Chandhok completed a trying one-off return in 20th and last place, not helped when he spun off at high speed at the Schumacher S on lap 31.

The big name missing from the final results was Button, who was recovering as well as could be expected on his two-stop strategy in the middle of the race, and took 6th from Rosberg with a neat move into turn one on lap 35, but then was forced to retire a lap later when his hydraulics system packed up. A second retirement in a row for Button, who has now fallen over 100 points behind Vettel's championship lead. He joined Heidfeld in retirement, along with Williams driver Rubens Barrichello and HRT's Tonio Liuzzi, both of whom had mechanical dramas.

But while there was bad news for one McLaren, the other took his second win of the season in fine style and did some minimal damage to the huge lead of Vettel's in the championship. As a microcosm then, the whole race was proof that you can have more than a two-way fight for something without it getting too cluttered. Though in the 2011 championship, fans would likely be happy to just get something approaching a two-way.

Driver of the Race

Adrian Sutil - Finishing sixth in a Force India is pretty impressive at the best of times, if you ignore that surreal bit of 2009 when the Findia was the second or third strongest car on the grid for a couple of races, it ranks one below the best ever result for the team. But finishing sixth in a race devoid of significant attrition, beating the likes of Mercedes and Renault in a straight fight is pretty superb. Granted, it had a lot to do with his two-stop strategy, and granted Lewis Hamilton's drive was more eye-catchingly impressive, but we've been complimentary enough about him for one review, so Sutil nets this award for securing a spectacular result with no need for spectacular driving.

Moment of the Race

Lap 32 - Overtaking moves for the lead are a rare commodity in Formula One, almost as rare as an intelligent comment from Eddie Jordan or a stellar drive from Felipe Massa. Equally rare, this season at least, have been sublime passes from Lewis Hamilton, who has tended to biff and barge his way through his competitors more times than he would have liked. But his pass for the lead here, admittedly assisted by Fernando Alonso making a bit of a pig's ear of turn one after emerging on the pits, was neat, tidy, and ultimately crucial to his race win. His third stint was majestic, but it was all made possible by clearing Alonso at the first opportunity. And all without the need for any contact.

Quote of the Race

"It was one of the best laps I've ever done." / "It was one of the best races I've ever done." - Lewis Hamilton's post-qualifying and post-race soundbites. At least the switch from describing things as the " of my life" to just being "one of the best" is a sort of a step towards modesty.

Patronise F1's German GP Index

Race Preview - German Grand Prix

Minute-by-minute reports:
Free Practice 1
Free Practice 2
Free Practice 3
German GP Qualifying
German GP Race

Session reports:
FP1 - Alonso heads Bulls in first Nurby practice
FP2 - Webber edges close fight in second practice
FP3 - Vettel beats rivals in final Nurby practice
Qualifying - Webber beats Hamilton to German pole
Race - Hamilton cruises to victory in German GP

Post-race coverage:
Five talking points from the German GP
Fifth Column - Germany

The Results

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