GERMAN GP – RACE RESULTS

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Report – Mixed fortunes for Scuderia Ferrari in the German Grand Prix: Fernando Alonso fought tooth and nail all race long, to finish a strong fifth. Kimi Raikkonen went well in the first stint, but then slipped down the order in the second to finish outside the points.
The Safety Car came out immediately after the start after Magnussen and Massa collided, with the Brazilian’s car tipping over. Alonso therefore moved up to fourth on the opening lap, while Kimi also got away well to go eighth.

The first pit stops mixed up the order: while the top ten had to start on Supersofts, Kimi was on the Soft and thus running longer, so when Fernando and Vettel found themselves behind the Finn and, as they went either side of him, they bounced off one another, Kimi sustaining front wing damage.

Alonso and Vettel kept close company up to two thirds distance. Vettel then made an early final stop to get the edge over the Ferrari man, who then had a thrilling 3 lap duel with Ricciardo in the other Red Bull, the Australian twice passing the Spaniard, but Fernando eventually made it stick. After a difficult middle stint, Kimi was unable to climb back into the points.

Final Results & Standings:

Pos Driver                Team                   Time/Gap
 1. Nico Rosberg          Mercedes               1h33m42.914s
 2. Valtteri Bottas       Williams-Mercedes      +20.789s  
 3. Lewis Hamilton        Mercedes               +22.530s  
 4. Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault       +44.014s  
 5. Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                +52.467s  
 6. Daniel Ricciardo      Red Bull-Renault       +52.549s  
 7. Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes   +1m04.178s
 8. Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes       +1m24.711s
 9. Kevin Magnussen       McLaren-Mercedes       -1 lap
10. Sergio Perez          Force India-Mercedes   -1 lap
11. Kimi Raikkonen        Ferrari                -1 lap
12. Pastor Maldonado      Lotus-Renault          -1 lap
13. Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Renault     -1 lap
14. Esteban Gutierrez     Sauber-Ferrari         -1 lap
15. Jules Bianchi         Marussia-Ferrari       -1 lap
16. Kamui Kobayashi       Caterham-Renault       -2 laps
17. Max Chilton           Marussia-Ferrari       -2 laps
18. Marcus Ericsson       Caterham-Renault       -2 laps


Retirements

    Felipe Massa          Williams-Mercedes      47 laps
    Daniil Kvyat          Toro Rosso-Renault     44 laps
    Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault          26 laps
    Adrian Sutil          Sauber-Ferrari         0 laps

Drivers' championship             Constructors' championship
 1. Nico Rosberg        190       1. Mercedes              366
 2. Lewis Hamilton      176       2. Red Bull-Renault      188
 3. Daniel Ricciardo    106       3. Williams-Mercedes     121
 4. Fernando Alonso     97        4. Ferrari               116
 5. Valtteri Bottas     91        5. Force India-Mercedes  98 
 6. Sebastian Vettel    82        6. McLaren-Mercedes      96 
 7. Nico Hülkenberg     69        7. Toro Rosso-Renault    15 
 8. Jenson Button       59        8. Lotus-Renault         8  
 9. Kevin Magnussen     37        9. Marussia-Ferrari      2  
10. Felipe Massa        30       10. Sauber-Ferrari        0  
11. Sergio Pérez        29       11. Caterham-Renault      0  
12. Kimi Räikkönen      19 
13. Jean-Éric Vergne    9  
14. Romain Grosjean     8  
15. Daniil Kvyat        6  
16. Jules Bianchi       2

QUOTES

Kimi Raikkonen – “It’s a real shame the way my race went, because this weekend, I felt more comfortable and today, on fresh tyres, I was going well. Unfortunately, twice I found myself squeezed between two cars and on both occasions my front wing got damaged and that compromised my race. Tyre performance dropped more than expected and I had graining on the front left and was losing aerodynamic downforce. On the positive side, I was able to drive the way I like today. I am sure that, but for these problems, things would have worked out differently and I would have been able to finish in the points.”

Marco Mattiacci – “He (Raikkonen) is the driver that we need. I think he knows what he can do better, it’s not up to me, he is a professional driver and a world champion with Ferrari. He’s motivated, he knows there is areas of improvement… we are all together on this. He has the utmost confidence and support from Ferrari.”

Raikkonen: damage caused poor result – “We thought it was the right [strategy] choice but I got hit twice, ended up in the middle of two cars and damaged my front wing. The endplate came off. That didn’t help. I killed the front left – the tyres were always OK except the front left. So I couldn’t run as long as we wanted on the super-softs and just lost performance because of the damage to the car. It was OK [battle with Vettel, Alonso, Hamilton], but when I’m in the middle I can’t go anywhere. I ended up squeezed a little bit. It wasn’t much but it was enough to damage the wing. I couldn’t go more to the left because there were cars.”

VIDEO

Interview translation:

• Kimi: “I was hit two times by other cars, I was blocked between them, I didn’t know where to go, the first time there were some parts flying out from the car and the second time the front wing has broken. The car was good with the tyres but the front wing was broken so it gave me some problems on the front. And all these problems damaged us, but this apart, the car gave me some good feelings.”
• Q: “We heard you complaining at the radio for the strategy. Would you have made something different?”
• Kimi: “Well, I don’t think there’s anything to speak about, we lost the front wing, we couldn’t do anything much different. I was blocked among cars, there were some contacts and I think this damaged us most, there was nothing wrong with the strategy, having a “complete” car would have helped me.”