The final race before the Formula One summer break has arrived. The German Grand Prix has made a return the calendar, following its one year absence, and there are many home drivers looking for a great result in front of their home crowd.
Hockenheimring is the scene for this year’s German Grand Prix, as it’s their turn to host, as determined with the alternating contract that the circuit has with the Nürburgring. The circuit is quite fast and there are many sections on the track where the drivers may use full throttle. The hairpin in the slowest corner on the circuit. The circuit can be quite narrow at some points, which can lead to collisions.
Nico Rosberg has had a spectacular weekend in front of his home crowd and was able to lead every session in the weekend. Despite a brief scare at the start of Q3, which led to an engine failure, Rosberg will start from pole position on the grid, alongside his teammate. Having lost the World Championship lead, Rosberg will be looking to beat his teammate and take it back. There’s no reason to doubt that he would be able to get the lead back this weekend, given the great weekend that he has had so far. Of course, Lewis Hamilton will not give up the lead without a fight. Whichever Mercedes driver comes out with the victory this weekend will have the momentum going into the summer break.
Red Bull appears to have bested Ferrari, as they lock out the second row of the grid ahead of the Italian team. Daniel Ricciardo will take part in his 100th Grand Prix this weekend, so he will be looking for a strong result. Ricciardo is in a race with his teammate, Max Verstappen, to show the Red Bull bosses that he is better than the team’s newest recruit. Verstappen is a strong driver and Ricciardo cannot afford to get overshadowed by his teammate, especially considering how much more F1 experience that the Australian has.
The third row of the grid goes to a team in chaos and one which seriously needs a strong performance in the final race before summer break. With the recent announcement that James Allison has left the team, it has led many to question what is going on in Ferrari. Ferrari is usually a very private team with a lot of pressures that the public never sees, but it appears that some of the tension is beginning to boil over into view and showing us the horrible state that the team is in right now. This was a season where we were promised a serious race between Mercedes and Ferrari, the team needs a race victory as soon as possible so that the season isn’t a complete bust. Unfortunately, the current Mercedes form shows that a race victory is probably out of reach this weekend, but it will be equally as vital for Ferrari to demonstrate that they haven’t lost ground on Red Bull. It will be interesting to see whether the team opts to use team orders to get Sebastian Vettel ahead of Kimi Räikkönen, seeing as he is usually seen as the more competitive and quicker driver.
It will be important to soak up as much Formula One as you can this weekend, since we will be without the sport for nearly a month.
