Formula One: German Grand Prix - Verstappen avoids incident to win second race of the year

On a wet day in Germany, Max Verstappen held on to win his second race this year after a chaotic Grand Prix.

Photo from Autoblog

Max Verstappen claimed his second win of the year as the Red Bull in a wet and incident-strewn race in Germany.
Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel finished second from bottom with Toro Rosso's Daniil Kyvat third.
Lewis Hamilton finished 11th with two mistakes, but his team-mate Valterri Bottas' crash means the Brit didn't lose any ground in the race to the championship.
It was not the result that Mercedes will have wanted, having celebrated their 125th anniversary in motorsport and their 200th Formula One race this weekend.
It was just Mercedes that suffered though, with six safety cars required and the winner requiring five pit stops to change between wet and dry tyres.
Vettel's team-mate Charles Leclerc crashed when in a good position to hold on to second, while Renault's Nico Hulkenberg also crashed at the penultimate corner where Hamilton also went off the track.

Photo from BBC Sport

Red Bull and Verstappen made all the correct decisions with regard to strategy, with the Dutchman judging the conditions brilliantly.
Amid the chaos, he drove flawlessly, tracking Hamilton in third in the first half and then pouncing to take the lead as the defending world champion's race fell apart.
He ran wide at the penultimate corner, sliding across the slippery run-off area and hitting the wall, but that was only the start of Mercedes problems, rejoining the track with a damaged front wing, unlike Leclerc who was stuck in the gravel.
Hamilton pulled straight into the pit - breaking the rules by going the wrong side of a bollard - spending 50 seconds stationary as the Mercedes mechanics, who were expecting Bottas, struggled to replace his front wing and find the right set of tyres.
The bollard-infringement earned him a five-second penalty, rejoining the race in fifth before passing the Toro Rosso well-driven by Alxander Albon and Hulkenberg's Renault into third.
The safety car deployed when Hulkenberg went off at the same second-to-last corner went a long way to define the finishing positions.
Verstappen soon pitted for fresh tyres but Mercedes did not, when Hamilton questioned the decision, the team said they did not want to have to serve the penalty then, even though it seemed the obvious thing to do.
The race restarted on lap 46 - 18 to go - and the track began to dry so the drivers soon pitted for the dry-weather tyres.
Mercedes pitted Hamilton a lap after Verstappen and Bottas, rejoining in 12th place.
While trying to make up for lost ground, Hamilton had a massive spin at Turn One with 11 laps to go, the stop for fresh tyre cost him any chance of points from then on.
You would think that this would be Bottas' chance to close the gap on his team-mate by taking some points here while Hamilton got none, but the Finn soon made a similar mistake to that of Hamilton, four laps after the Brit.

On his return to the track where he crashed out while leading last year, Vettel spent most of the race in the lower top 10.
But he came alive in the latter stages, after being fourth at the time of the final safety car following the Bottas crash, the German picked his way past McLaren's Carlos Sainz, Racing Point's Lance Stroll and Kyvat to take a well-deserved second.
Stroll and Kyvat were in second and third when their team pitted them towards the end of the safety car period for Hulkenberg's crash.
Kyvat passed Stroll into second, but couldn't hold off Vettel's second wind.
Stroll managed an excellent fourth while Sainz finished fifth and Albon in a career-best sixth in his debut season.
The Anglo-Thai was unfortunate - he was well ahead of Kvyat all race and running consistently in the points, but he suffered when his team gambled on Kyvat pitting under the safety car while leaving Albon out in fourth.
Vettel's performance was a much-needed boost for Ferrari, after both cars dropped out of qualifying with engine problems leaving Leclerc 10th on the grid and Vettel last.
Leclerc started better, with the team making the perfect strategy calls in the first half of the race.
But he ran wide at the penultimate corner on lap 28, just after gambling on dry-weather tyres on a drying track. 
He got on to the slippery run-off and slid into the gravel, his wheels spinning as he vainly fought to extricate himself.

Photo from BBC Sport

2019 German Grand Prix Results

#		DRIVER	CAR	LAPS	TIME/RETIRED	pts
C		M Verstappen	RED BULL	64	1:44:31.275	26
2		S Vettel	FERRARI	64	+7.333s	18
3		D Kvyat	TORO ROSSO	64	+8.305s	15
4		L Stroll	RACING POINT	64	+8.966s	12
5		C Sainz Jr.	MCLAREN	64	+9.583s	10
6		A Albon	TORO ROSSO	64	+10.052s	8
7		R Grosjean	HAAS	64	+16.838s	6
8		K Magnussen	HAAS	64	+18.765s	4
9		L Hamilton	MERCEDES	64	+19.667s	2
10		R Kubica	WILLIAMS	64	+24.987s	1
11		G Russell	WILLIAMS	64	+26.404s	0
12		K Räikkönen	ALFA ROMEO	64	+42.214s	0
13		A Giovinazzi	ALFA ROMEO	64	+43.849s	0
14		P Gasly	RED BULL	61	DNF	0
NC		V Bottas	MERCEDES	56	DNF	0
NC		N Hulkenberg	RENAULT	39	DNF	0
NC		C Leclerc	FERRARI	27	DNF	0
NC		L Norris	MCLAREN	25	DNF	0
NC		D Ricciardo	RENAULT	13	DNF	0
NC		S Perez	RACING POINT	1	DNF	0

Formula One Driver's Championship Standings

#/Driver/Team/Points/Wins/Podiums

1/L Hamilton/Mercedes/225/7/9
2/V Bottas/Mercedes/184/2/9
3/M Verstappen/Red Bull/162/2/4
4/S Vettel/Ferrari/141/0/5
5/C Leclerc/Ferrari/120/0/5
6/P Gasly/Red Bull/55/0/0
7/C Sainz Jr./McLaren48/0/0
8/D Kvyat/Toro Rosso/27/0/1
9/K Räikkönen/Alfa Romeo/25/0/0
10/L Norris/McLaren/22/0/0
11/D Ricciardo/Renault/22/0/0
12/L Stroll/Racing Point/18/0/0
13/K Magnussen/Haas/18/0/0
14/N Hülkenberg/Renault/17/0/0
15/A Albon/Toro Rosso/15/0/0
16/S Pérez/Racing Point/13/0/0
17/R Grosjean/Haas/8/0/0
18/A Giovinazzi/Alfa Romeo/1/0/0
19/R Kubica/Williams/1/0/0
20/G Russell/Williams/0/0/0

2019 Races and Results
Australian Grand Prix
Melbourne, 15-17 March
1. Bottas, 2. Hamilton, 3. Verstappen

Bahrain Grand Prix
Sakhir, 29-31 March
1. Hamilton, 2. Bottas, 3. Leclerc

Chinese Grand Prix
Shanghai, 12-14 April
1. Hamilton, 2. Bottas, 3. Vettel

Azerbaijan Grand Prix
Baku, 26-28 April
1. Bottas, 2. Hamilton, 3. Vettel

Spanish Grand Prix
Barcelona, 10-12 May
1. Hamilton, 2. Bottas, 3. Verstappen

Monaco Grand Prix
Monte Carlo, 23, 25-26 May
1. Hamilton, 2. Vettel, 3. Bottas

Canadian Grand Prix
Montreal, 7-9 June
1. Hamilton, 2. Vettel, 3. Leclerc

French Grand Prix
Le Castellet, 21-23 June
1. Hamilton, 2. Bottas, 3. Leclerc

Austrian Grand Prix
Spielberg, 28-30 June
1. Verstappen, 2. Leclerc, 3. Bottas

British Grand Prix
Silverstone, 12-14 July
1. Hamilton, 2. Bottas, 3. Leclerc

German Grand Prix
Hockenheim, 26-28 July
1. Verstappen, 2. Vettel, 3. Kyvat

Hungarian Grand Prix
Budapest, 2-4 August

Belgian Grand Prix
Spa-Francorchamps, 30 August-1 September

Italian Grand Prix
Monza, 6-8 September

Singapore Grand Prix
Marina Bay, 20-22 September

Russian Grand Prix
Sochi, 27-29 September

Japanese Grand Prix
Suzuka, 11-13 October

Mexican Grand Prix
Mexico City, 25-27 October

United States Grand Prix
Austin, 1-3 November

Brazilian Grand Prix
Sao Paulo, 15-17 November

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
Yas Marina, 29 November-1 December

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