German GP talking points: Lewis Hamilton’s lead, Red Bull vs Ferrari, Formula One U-turns

At the 2016 German Grand Prix, Formula One celebrated 50 races of the new but controversial hybrid era of the sport. Has the sport been a winner? If you’re an environmentalist, you might agree a little. If you’re the FIA, you will vehemently nod in agreement. But for us fans, that Mercedes has won 43 of these 50 races – an 86 percent win rate is a cause for concern. The question over the last two decades has been whether outright domination good for the sport at all? Are/ will fans be happy to consistently see a single team dominate proceedings? Lewis Hamilton won the 49th race of his career fairly effortlessly. After being beaten in qualifying on Saturday, he claimed revenge when it mattered the most by beating Nico Rosberg off the start line. After struggling for the early part of the season, Hamilton does seem to have sorted out his ‘race starts’. The reigning World Champion has won six out of the last seven races and is probably the only driver in the history of the sport to have won four races in the same month! And by the way, all of Hamilton’s 49 wins have come with Mercedes power. [caption id=“attachment_2927250” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Daniel Ricciardo, Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen celebrate on the podium. AP[/caption] After trailing 43 points in May, Hamilton now heads into the four week long summer break with a 19 point advantage over his title rival Rosberg. In the week leading up to the German Grand Prix, Rosberg made a bold claim that the points’ gap in the Drivers’ Championship didn’t bother him much. But that would be a difficult statement to believe given that the total points’ swing against Rosberg’s championship challenge has been 62 points. Unfortunately enough for Rosberg, the gap increased to its highest this season just at the start of the summer break. Will this impact the perceived-to-be psychologically weaker half-German-half-Finnish driver? Nico Rosberg lost the German Grand Prix at the start. This was the second successive start from pole that he failed to master. Furthermore, a very good racing move on Max Verstappen that didn’t see eye-to-eye with the FIA, saw him being awarded an in-race penalty of five seconds. To make matters worse, a low-tech stopwatch error in the Mercedes garage saw the team take approximately 8.3 seconds to service his penalty, which is blasphemous in Formula One. If the repeated Hamilton versus Rosberg battles aren’t interesting enough, the battle between Ferrari and Red Bull Racing and the battle in the Red Bull Racing garage should probably offer some excitement in the second half of the season. Red Bull Racing scored their first ever double podium finish since the 2015 Hungarian Grand Prix, almost a year ago. This unique feat saw them leapfrog to second place in the Constructors’ Championship, 14 points ahead of Ferrari. After delivering promises via press releases, the Italian team finally admitted that they were slow (Sebastian Vettel finished fifth and Kimi Raikkonen sixth). James Allison, their Technical Director, left the team a few days before the German Grand Prix. Would this be the first of many such departures from an underperforming Ferrari? Who will Ferrari poach to bolster their team in an effort to beat Formula One and road-car rivals Mercedes? Daniel Ricciardo, who also celebrated his 100th Grand Prix start at Hockenheim, showed Red Bull Racing and the Paddock that he’s a match for the much-discussed teenage prodigy, Max Verstappen. After out-qualifying Verstappen, he lost second place to his younger team-mate at the start and relied on his generosity mid-race to finally clinch second place. Verstappen’s third place was applauded as both Red Bull Racing cars managed to finish ahead of the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg. The Ricciardo versus Verstappen battle will be the one to relish since both seem equally matched on a said day and Red Bull Racing don’t seem to be playing favourites at the moment. Verstappen for that matter, seems much settled in Formula One and Red Bull Racing already. His obeying a team order (rare!) and then offering humourous references to Rosberg’s controversial overtaking are good signs for a racer who we shouldn’t forget is still a teenager. Much cheer would’ve also been heard in the McLaren-Honda garage after Jenson Button finished in eighth place, but crucially ahead of the Williams of Valtteri Bottas. Now one could debate if Williams is losing pace or McLaren picking up theirs, but the beneficiary of this could just be Force India who trail Williams by 15 points in the Constructors’ Championship for fourth place. Finally, Formula One did a series of U-turns yet again for various unpopular rules. While this is good for the sport, such frequent u-turns on crucial decisions make one wonder if there’s a single authority that is thinking about the betterment of the sport. The Strategy Group agreed to introduce cockpit protection from 2018 – a decision that brought some cheers and jeers alike. While the delay in introduction has upset a few drivers, the news that should bring joy to fans and drivers alike is, the relaxing of the unpopular and unfair radio ban. Simply put, the engineers on the teams’ pit walls will now be able to offer their drivers advice on racing these complex machines. The other rule which should help improve racing was that of ‘standing wet starts’. Drivers have heavily criticized ‘Safety Car’ starts in wet conditions in the recent years. Case in point – FIA’s over-use the Safety Car at recently concluded British Grand Prix till such time the track was dry enough for slicks. With the re-introduction of ‘wet starts’ we shall see the best drivers in the world doing what they should be going – master different driving conditions in ferociously powerful cars. Thank you FIA for giving us much reason to look forward to the second half of 2016.