F1: Hamilton claims hard fought win at Nurburgring in his best race of season

Nurburgring, July 24th 2011 – McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton claimed his second victory of the 2011 season and the 16th of his career at the German Grand Prix, taking his first-ever points finish at the legendary Nurburgring after a thrilling 60-lap race that featured several intense battles for the lead. Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso was second, ahead of Red Bull Racing’s Mark Webber – who started from pole – in third.

Hamilton beat Webber off the line as he seamed to get bogged down slightly. Webber took the lead by pitting early for another set of soft tyres on lap 14 in order to pre-empt both Hamilton and Alonso, who were running in close formation.

Race winner Lewis Hamilton (2nd right) celebrates on the podium with second placed Fernando Alonso and third placed Mark Webber and McLarens Simon Roberts (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)

The Red Bull driver was the first of the leading trio to change tyres again on lap 30, but Hamilton stopped just one lap later and came out right next to the Australian, claiming the lead after a fierce battle at the first corner. Lewis team mate Jensen Button suffered a hydraulic issue on lap 35 which finished his race.

Alonso tried the same tactic on lap 32 and also emerged in the thick of the leading battle, before Hamilton gained the advantage once again.

The top three all stopped three times in total and used the same strategy of three initial stints on the soft tyre and the final stint on the medium tyre. With the soft tyres expected to be more than a second a lap quicker than the medium tyres in the cool temperatures of 13 degrees centigrade, and a constant threat of rain, the drivers tried to stay out for as long as possible on the yellow tyre, putting the emphasis on tactics.

Hamilton was the first to make his final stop onto the medium rubber with nine laps to go. Alonso pitted two laps later, slotting in just behind Hamilton – who had quickly got up to racing speed. Adrian Sutil was the highest-placed driver to adopt a two-stop strategy, securing his best finish of the year with sixth place at his home grand prix. In an almost Senna-esque moment Alonso had to hitch a ride back to the pits with Webber as his car ran out of fuel.

Lewis Hamilton: “Every win is special – but with all the emotion, effort and energy the team put into today’s victory, this one feels even more special than usual. Coming into this weekend, I said I’d take things one race at a time. So to win today is massively positive for us, but there’s a long way to go and it’ll be about consistency as well as speed from here on in. Driving lap after lap within tenths of each other was about trying to do everything as perfectly as possible – yet, being aggressive yet controlled, I felt the moves I made today were some of the most precise I’ve ever pulled off. Being able to drive with your head as well as your heart, and getting it just right, is massively satisfying. The fight for the world championship will be very, very, very hard now. We’re back in the fight though, and I really hope we can carry this forward and keep the momentum going.”

Fernando Alonso after running out of fuel on the cool down lap gets a lift back to the pits from Mark Webber (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)

Mark Webber:- “I’m disappointed not to get the win today – but it’s another good result. At the end we needed to try and do something a bit different; we led the middle part of the race, but we couldn’t get the tyre range around the pit stops to get the undercut on the second stop. I drove on the limit, but we were not quick enough and that was it. Lewis was able to cover us all the time and respond to my pace, so you couldn’t get the gap. He got a good start and mine wasn’t so good, but the starts aren’t key to the race finishes this year. I did pretty much everything I could today – it was very intense racing between the three of us at the front (Lewis, Fernando and Mark), I was pushing to the limit, but there wasn’t much more we could do to challenge for the victory. We’re a strong unit though – a good team and we’ll push on. We know what we need to do”

Sebastien Vettel:- “It was tough, a difficult race. In the beginning, it didn’t feel so bad but I made a mistake, which bought me back to fifth and from there it was a tough recovery. I think fourth was the maximum we could achieve today – it’s not satisfying, but you have to accept that others were quicker today. I didn’t feel good all weekend and didn’t have the pace that Mark did in the car. The pit-stop at the end was fantastic. You come into the pit lane behind the other car and into your box and you can’t wait to leave as soon as the boys have changed the wheels. As I came out it was nice to see the Ferrari still stationary – that was all down to the boys, they did a very good job. Both Felipe and I were battling for a lot of the race and we were both on the edge. We had a problem mid-race with the brakes, but we managed it well, so we can be happy with the recovery we had from that. Hungary is the next race, which is normally a good track for us, so we’ll see, but we have homework to do. McLaren and Ferrari were very quick in the race and we need to come back to the pace they have.”