Ferrari have returned to the top by claiming their second 1-2 finish of the season at Hockenheim on Sunday. However, although the Scuderia wins for the first time since the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix, all of the attention surrounds a mid-race pass which involved the Brazilian allowing the Spaniard through.
Those who watched Sunday’s German Grand Prix can be forgiven for forgetting much of the action early into the afternoon, due to the subsequent bedlam which has dawned on the Hockenheim paddock surrounding Ferrari’s move. However, following much rain on Friday and more yesterday, sunshine confirmed a glorious day for motor racing on Sunday.
Qualifying had already brought fantastic excitement, with Ferrari returning to the sharp end but missing out on the top spot as local favourite Sebastian Vettel managed pole position by just two thousandths of a second from Alonso.
It was all-change at the start, though; as Vettel pulled away from the outside line, the German squeezed the charging Alonso towards the pit wall and it was Massa who gloriously swept around the outside of Turn 1 in the lead. Behind, World Championship leader Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren rose to fourth place by first passing team-mate Jenson Button and then overhauling the second Red Bull of Mark Webber on the inside of the Turn 6 hairpin.
Yellow flags then flew as Jaime Alguersuari – the leading Toro Rosso on the grid but passed at the start by Sébastien Buemi – ran into the back of his team-mate at the same corner, meaning both cars were forced to pit as well as the Force Indias, as they found themselves caught up in the incident.
However, as Buemi retired into the garage minus his rear wing, Adrian Sutil – who started 19th due to a gearbox change penalty – and Vitantonio Liuzzi pitted again on Laps 4 and 5, having momentarily broken the rules by, amid the confusion, leaving the pits with each others’ tyres on-board. An attempted rejoining of the race by Jarno Trulli resulted in no success, as the Lotus coasted home with gearbox problems.
The order at the front remained the same until Lap 22, with Massa leading Alonso, Vettel and Webber but Champion Jenson Button – who stayed out some ten laps later than those around him – jumping the struggling Red Bull of Mark Webber for fifth; the Australian managed to finish sixth, despite being advised by his team to brake ‘hard and late’ due to oil consumption levels which were too high.
Robert Kubica drove a quiet race to seventh as Nico Rosberg – who had been passed by the rapid-starting Michael Schumacher – jumped his team-mate during the stops and duly finished ahead in eighth, while the second Renault of Vitaly Petrov picked up another point despite being strictly told by his team to carefully manage gear shifts between sixth and seventh, to avoid technicians turning down his engine’s power.
Nico Hülkenberg sunk to 13th following his stop, having run longer and in the points for some time, although the luckless Pedro de la Rosa – who had also run long, but on the Hard tyres instead of the Super Softs – pulled out two forceful moves on the German before eventually hitting the lapped Heikki Kovalainen at the hairpin, confirming that both Lotuses failed to finish.
At the front, Massa continued to lead although Alonso slowly began to reduce the advantage from three seconds to two and a half, two, one and a half, 1.2, one single second and finally just eight tenths before the Brazilian received the following radio communication from Race Engineer Rob Smedley: Fernando-is-faster-than-you ; can you confirm that message?”
Massa duly handed the lead to his team-mate as the pair headed out of the hairpin on Lap 48, with the Spaniard then setting a string of fastest laps towards the end of the race in order to confirm his greater speed, which ultimately was only a tenth quicker than Massa’s.
Sunday’s results corroborate that Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button still head the drivers’ standings, with their McLaren team atop the Constructors’ Championship, although much chaos continues at Hockenheim as a media frenzy surrounds Ferrari.
The F1 rollercoaster heads into Hungary in only a week’s time, with the pair of back-to-back races preceding the three-week summer break before Belgium
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