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Christian Horner says that Red Bull feared that Kimi Raikkonen would be able to hang onto the lead in Germany by not making a third pit stop – an alternative outcome that Kimi himself pondered after the race.

In the end the Finn did come in for an 11-lap final stint on soft tyres, and ultimately had to settle for second place behind Sebastian Vettel.

“It was a tough call in some respects and not in others,” he said of Vettel’s final pit stop, made in response to Romain Grosjean coming in. “Obviously the pace car came out when a Marussia started a life of its own, and that was at a very awkward point in the race, because it was still potentially too far to go on a set of the harder tyres. So we elected to fit a set of scrubbed tyres to Sebastian’s car, leaving one new set available for the last stint.

“So we intended to stop, and were thinking that the Lotuses might actually try to brave it out to the end. Once Grosjean stopped then it made perfect sense for us to cover Grosjean. The risk with that was conceding the lead to Kimi if he didn’t need to stop, and he was looking in pretty good shape at that stage.

“We made the stop, covered Grosjean, we then focussed on keeping the gap to Kimi to less than a pit stop obviously, so that when he did stop for the soft tyres Sebastian had just enough to cover him. We saw that the Lotus was very quick on the soft tyre at the beginning of the race, but Sebastian kept just enough up his sleeve to fend him off over the last few laps.”

Horner stressed that the victory meant a lot to Vettel.

“For him it’s obviously massively special to win your home race, and he’s for sure extremely proud of what he’s achieved today. He’s always taken the bigger picture. We discussed it before the race and said let’s go for the best that we can, and if that’s second today, that’s second. There’s just as many points attached to this race as the other 18, and it’s approaching one at a time.

“But there was a pretty big grin on his face, and he was pretty excited to cross the line. To win it the way he did, it was absolutely text book from him today, he did not put a wheel wrong, pushed when he needed to, and he was on it every single lap. I think he’s pretty chuffed to have won his home race.

“It was a good race today, it was an exciting race, plenty going on. For us it made up in some way for the disappointment of Silverstone as well, having got so close to winning the British GP. To address that a week later in Sebastian’s home race was a great result.”

Horner admitted that he was surprised to see Mercedes struggle so much on race day.

“Yes, because they had looked strong on Friday, so maybe perhaps the temperature today hurt them more than others. Certainly the Lotuses were very quick today. We were surprised that Fernando stopped so early on the hard tyre, so I don’t know what his issue was, but it was definitely clear early on that initially Grosjean was going to be the major factor after his long stint on the first set of soft tyres, and then obviously Kimi came into play later on in the race as well. They were very strong today, but what happened to Mercedes, I’m not quite sure.”

Despite Vettel’s comfortable lead Horner says that the title fight is still wide open.

“I think it’s very much a four-way battle, I don’t think you can discount anybody. We’re effectively at the half way point of the year, there’s still an awful long way to go, and anything can change. But to have won four Grands Prix in the first half of the year is satisfying, but it doesn’t guarantee anything. We see weekend to weekend different teams have different levels of competitiveness. I’m sure that will continue during the next few events.”

Nico Rosberg salvaged ninth place at the end of a disappointing German GP weekend as – against expectations – Mercedes stuggled with the latest tyres. Here’s what he had to say.

Kimi Raikkonen kept himself in the World Championship fight by finishing second to Sebastian Vettel in Germany by the narrow margin of 1.008s – but it could have been a victory for the Finn.

The race turned on the final pit stops, and indeed Kimi had the possibility to not actually make one and just carry on to the flag. However he was called in for soft tyres for the final 11-lap run to the flag.

Although he ultimately got passed team mate Romain Grosjean and onto Vettel’s tail, he lost time getting past other cars, and ran out of laps in which to attempt a pass.

“After the Safety Car we were pretty OK and the cars, three of us, had similar speed and it’s very difficult to overtake anybody,” he said. “I could run longer and we had a think about it, if we can try to run until the end but we had a massive problem with the radio. I could hear them, but they could only hear me between two corners.

“So I’m wondering if we should have done it, take a gamble and try to go to the end because the tyres were pretty OK, my speed was pretty OK, so it was hard to know what happens in the next 10 laps. We decided to come in and put the soft tyres. We had good speed. Obviously I got some help from Romain to get past but we would have had a big fight, anyhow. I could have probably passed him in a normal situation but obviously it would have cost me a lot of time.

“I caught up with Seb but, like I said before, everybody was behind each other but we are too close on speeds and it’s so difficult to overtake then. We tried everything that we had and failed to win, but I think for the team we did a good race, and got both cars on the podium, so as a team we’re happy. But obviously I lost some more points to Seb in the championship. We keep trying.”

Kimi insisted that second was better than nothing: “Obviously we are here to try and win races. We couldn’t today because we were not fast enough but for the team it was a good result after a couple of quite difficult races, so obviously for my championship it was not ideal, we lost some more points but it’s still a long season, and if we keep putting ourselves in a position for at least fighting for first place then I think we can do it again. But as I said, it’s good for the team, and not so good for my championship.”

Red Bull was fined €30,000 for an unsafe pit stop release after a lost wheel from Mark Webber’s car injured TV cameraman Paul Allen in Germany.

Webber was erroneously given the signal to leave the pits after his first stop, despite the right rear not being secured. The wheel immediately detached and rolled down the pitlane. It narrowly missed some Lotus mechanics and headed into the Mercedes pit, where two FOM TV pitlane cameramen were stationed.

The first was facing Webber and crouching down. Having seen the wheel, he moved out of the way, leaving his camera on the pit road. The wheel continued move along at ground level – until it struck the abandoned camera.

It then bounced upwards, hitting Allen – who was facing the other way after panning around to get Webber’s exit – squarely in the back. He was knocked to the ground, suffering broken ribs and a broken collarbone.

Red Bull initially thought that the man struck was a Mercedes mechanic, but the team was later informed that he was an FOM crew member, and kept informed of his condition.

Christian Horner chose not to inform Webber until after the race.

“Obviously we need to fully understand what’s happened and why the wheel wasn’t located,” said Horner. “The wheel has obviously then detached itself from the car with quite a bit of energy, and knocked a cameraman, Paul Allen, over. Most importantly he’s fundamentally OK. Obviously that was our primary concern, but it’s a timely reminder that the pitlane is still a pretty dangerous place to be.

“It’s a horrible feeling, because your immediate concern is for that individual, that he’ll be alright. Initially I thought it was a Mercedes mechanic, but very quickly I was updated by FOM that it was one of their cameraman, and he was on his way to hospital.

“All the initial signs looked OK and they kept me updated during the race with what their findings were. The important thing is that he’s OK. It must be shocking for his family as well to see something like that. The most important thing is he’s fundamentally OK.”

Regarding Webber, he said: “We chose not to inform Mark at that point, we didn’t see that it was relevant for him to be racing with that on his mind, so he was informed after the race. He was obviously very concerned for the wellbeing of the camera guy and pleased to hear that was OK.”

Horner said that it perhaps people working in the pitlane should be better protected.

“The mechanics have to wear safety gear and helmets, and maybe it’s time that we look at perhaps some of the other operational working people having to home some safety equipment as well.

“Head injuries in particular are pretty nasty, so maybe it’s something that needs to be looked at.”

Sebastian Vettel finally won his home Grand Prix in Germany after holding off the challenge of Kimi Raikkonen in the closing laps.

It was also his first win in July, an unusual statistic that has followed him around in recent years.

“To be honest, for sure, there are a lot of expectations,” said Vettel of the pressures of racing at home. “Especially when you have a good car and for a couple of years you’ve had a good run, when you come to home soil people expect you to win. I think the whole team, including myself, we never ever let that get to our head but it just feels very, very sweet now to have succeeded after a couple of tries. Sometimes we were close.

“I think we had good races in the past in Germany as well, finished on the podium, which was a great experience but today, to win here – both tracks, Hockenheim and Nurburgring mean a lot to me. To race in Germany I think is a privilege. I think it take some little while to sink in but I’m just incredibly proud today.”

Vettel said in general the race had gone to plan.

“The team did a fantastic job for strategy and for the pit stops. On the track it was so difficult. I pushed every single lap but it’s so tough when you’re on the edge and you know that you can’t go over the tyres too much because then you will not reach the end of the stint. Equally, passing people, you know that you have to get through traffic as quick as you can, so not an easy race.

“The Safety Car didn’t help us. We had a little bit of a cushion but Lotus was incredibly quick today and gave us definitely a big run for our money. I’m just very happy that it worked out. Last but not least our compliments to Pirelli.

“They did a very, very good job within a couple of days to react and bring a different rear tyre to this event. I think we didn’t have any failures throughout the whole weekend. They had a lot of criticism after the last race, but it looked like they made up for it this race, and hopefully for the next races we continue to have racing like that.”

The critical time for Vettel was around his final pit stop, when he pitted in response to Romain Grosjean coming in.

“Tyres were holding up OK and the gap to Romain was increasing a little bit again at that time. Just before the stop, a couple of laps, I lost KERS and I was able to switch it back on and pull away again. But obviously I think we try to cover him to make sure we stay ahead and we defend the lead because we saw that overtaking is quite tricky here.

“It’s possible. I went through traffic pretty quickly but obviously there was a big delta in speed, in pace at that time. So in order to make sure we stayed ahead, we tried to cover him.”

Sebastian Vettel says he’s satisfied with second place on the grid in Germany, despite being eased out by Lewis Hamilton at his home race, and at the very last minute.

Vettel was briefly fastest after his second run, but Hamilton went quicker right at the end.

“I think it was quite close,” said Vettel. “I think I tried everything I had, the car felt fine. I think we were struggling a little bit this afternoon in the first sector, losing a little bit of time there and then trying to catch up. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough but it looks like we are much closer to them here than we were in Silverstone.

“So, I think we’ve made some progress and have all confidence for tomorrow. We had a good run yesterday, looking at the race. I think we did our homework and now obviously it’s up to us. We put the car in the first row. It wasn’t quite enough for pole position but we should have a good race from there. I’m looking forward to the race tomorrow.”

Vettel admitted things hadn’t quite gone right for him today.

“I was very happy in FP3 this morning. I was very happy with the car, so we didn’t change much. And this afternoon, I was struggling to bring it together, especially in the first part of the track, it was quite windy, we had wind from the back and the track was a little bit warmed.

“Still, the car wasn’t bad; it wasn’t awful through the first sector. So I was pretty happy but the time didn’t come. And I tried to do the best I could in the next two sectors but it wasn’t enough to get Lewis today.”

Lewis Hamilton bounced back from a poor morning practice session in Germany to secure his second straight pole.

Hamilton was fastest in FP1 on Friday but the car got progressively less to his liking after he made changes for FP2 and again for FP3. He was even concerned that he wouldn’t make the top 10, but further changes for qualifying paid off, and he pipped Sebastian Vettel.

“I tell you, it’s really overwhelming,” said Hamilton. “I’ve been struggling since the first run in P1, which was pretty good, P2, P3 were just disasters and it got even worse this morning. We were miles off. I was a good eight-tenths of a second off. I wasn’t comfortable with the car at all.

“And we went back into the truck and we just worked hard, tried to analyse everything and made lots and lots of changes. I just hoped that it would work and fortunately the car was beneath me and I was able to put in the times we did. I’m grateful for the work the guys did with me and, again, this is just down to all the hard work the team has been putting in.”

Hamilton admitted he was surprised that team mate Nico Rosberg missed out on Q3 after a bad call by the team.

“Well, it was obviously a big surprise for all of us. Nico’s been quick all weekend and I anticipated that he would most likely out-qualify me today and be up there where we are right now. Obviously he was only two tenths off the pace compared to my lap and obviously the track did ramp up and that was a real surprise and that caught us out a bit.”

Rush has received a positive response. Photo: AC

Ron Howard came through what he described as his ‘toughest test’ since he completed Rush when F1 insiders gave him an ovation after a screening of the film at the German GP.

Niki Lauda, who had already seen the film that tells his story, led the applause for a visibly relieved Howard – who admitted to the audience in his introduction that he was nervous.

While the film has been well received by members of the motor sporting media, Thursday night was the first time that it had been viewed a large group of leading lights from the F1 paddock, led by Bernie Ecclestone.

Drivers Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg and Felipe Massa were joined by senior team members including Ross Brawn, Adrian Newey, Christian Horner, Paddy Lowe, Toto Wolff and Sam Michael.

“I went home and immediately phoned my wife Cheryl,” Howard told this blog. “She understood when I compared it to the screening of Apollo 13 that we did at NASA for the astronauts and mission controllers. It was that kind of feeling last night, having everyone vouch for it, sanction it, and compliment us on it.

“It was, ‘Here’s the elite, they’re right in it, what are they going to think?’ I spoke to the drivers, and they were very complimentary, which made me feel great. Some of the engineering guys are so excited by what we’ve achieved. I don’t know where that comes from – perhaps they’ve been disappointed by other films, or perhaps they assumed it was too complicated for us to ever get it.”

Howard was particularly pleased to get an unconditional thumbs-up from Ecclestone.

“I said to Bernie, ‘Thanks for taking the time to see the movie,’ and he said, ‘Thanks for making it. It really took me back.’ He wasn’t joking, he was kind of emotional, and I think he was surprised.

“Surprised is the word that I have to use to define almost every screening. People are coming out of this having got somehow more than they expected, which is gratifying.”

Rush will be released in September.

Fernando Alonso says he trusts Pirelli to solve the problems that blighted the British GP.

The Spaniard, who had a close-up view of the left rear of Sergio Perez exploding, says safety is the priority.

“It was a dangerous situation, but I didn’t think anything special about it at the time,” he said of the Perez incident. “I committed to overtake Sergio on the right, which was lucky, because if I’d gone to the left maybe the tyre debris would have hit my helmet. Bits of steel travelling at 300 kilometres per hour would be like a bullet or a knife.

“Now, they have made some changes and we trust Pirelli to solve the problem as they know what they are doing. Let’s wait and see and hopefully we won’t have these problems again as they are not good for the sport. We need to wait and see how it will affect our performance. It’s the third or fourth change they’ve made this season, some have hurt us, some were good for us and that is another question mark for this weekend.

“However, they have only changed the rears, and usually they are less problematic in terms of the warm-up that we can suffer from with the fronts. But today, performance is the second priority. What we need to have is a tyre with which you can finish the race and get home at night.”

Regarding the general mood after a low-key performance at Silverstone, he said: “Mixed feelings. Obviously we said we were happy with closing the points gap to Vettel, but not happy with our performance. It’s something we need to investigate here, to see if Silverstone was a one-off, because we didn’t have the right balance on the car or if it’s because everyone else made more progress and we made a step backwards. Hopefully, this weekend we can return to the form we showed earlier.

“We went very deep in the analysis of Silverstone, as we were not competitive and we did see some issues with the car in terms of its aerodynamic characteristics and also the set-up. So maybe we can do things better here.

“In any case, this race and the next one in Hungary will be dominated by the tyres and which cars they suit best. This means we must learn to interpret the new tyres as quickly as possible and get them to work for us and we will be putting a lot of effort into this.”

F1 drivers have been supportive of the action taken by Pirelli in the wake of the Silverstone problems.

While privately some may have concerns about changes to the competitive status quo, all agreed that the safety issue was paramount.

“I think first of all that it’s good that within not even a week’s time, how we were able to get a different tyre for this race which hopefully is safer for all of us,” said Sebastian Vettel. “Obviously the last race was not what we want and not satisfactory so I think it’s good that we have a new tyre here. How much better and how different it will be is difficult to judge at this stage but I’m confident that it’s a step forward.”

“I think it’s definitely important to change something for safety, no longer for the performance,” said Sergio Perez, one of the ‘victims’ of a blowout last weekend. “I think it’s very important that we as drivers feel safe, something that could really happen, a big accident in the last race weekend, so I think that definitely it’s a good thing that Pirelli is reacting to make a change.”

“I think it is for safety now and there must be some action and there is some action,” Nico Hulkenberg. “There are changes and I think generally this track here is not as high speed, not as many high speed corners so the tyres don’t get as hard a time as they did at Silverstone. So I’m confident that this will be safe now.”

“Well, I trust the FIA is going to make the right calls,” said Nico Rosberg. “As they are, they’re working on it flat out together with Pirelli, so I’m sure there’s going to be progress and it shouldn’t be a concern this weekend.”