Adam Cooper F1

Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff has praised Lewis Hamilton’s drive to third place in Germany after wing damage had compromised his pace.

The Briton chased down Valtteri Bottas in the closing laps, using a three-stop schedule to make better use of supersoft tyres, while the Finn stopped only twice.

“For me it feels like a one-two,” said Wolff. “Because he was coming from P20, and recovering to where he did, considering there were some difficult early laps – it wasn’t like making five, or six, or seven positions in lap one, he was really working hard to get back to the front.

“How close was it? I think the misunderstanding with Jenson cost him quite some lap time. We were quite down on downforce on the front wing, and then at the end with the strategy going back to the option tyre, we knew the window was very narrow where the pace in that tyre was really good. Valtteri was just cold blooded at the end, and defended well.”

Wolff believes that without the damage Hamilton would have had the pace with which to challenge Bottas.

“I think the car could have had much more performance with the wing not damaged. I can’t really give you [a lap time loss], but he lost many, many points of downforce from the front wing.”

Asked by this writer if the team had considered changing the damaged nose, which would have cost around 12s, he said: “We had precise data on what the nose was looking like and how the nose was performing. And of course we were very much aware that there wasn’t structural damage on the front wing, just the front wing end plate, some of the fins. We decided that the front wing was not deteriorating any further, so we decided to keep it on.”

Bernie Ecclestone says he has no concerns about the Russian GP in the light of the MH17 tragedy.

While Ecclestone and the FIA have always insisted that motor sport is not affected by politics, it seems inevitable that in the coming weeks the international spotlight will fall upon the Sochi race, and indeed any other high profile events scheduled to take place in Russia.

The Grand Prix is a potentially a particularly sensitive case, as it is closely associated with Vladmir Putin. It’s easy to speculate that some F1 sponsors – such as Malaysia’s Petronas – might have concerns about being seen to support the race, but Ecclestone does not anticipate any issues.

“I don’t see any problems with that,” he said when asked by this writer. “Were they [Russia] in the World Cup or not? You would have thought people would have tried to stop it, wouldn’t you? Like I’ve said, we don’t get involved in politics. We have a contract with them, which we know they will respect. And we will do the same.”

Asked if Putin’s close involvement with Sochi would draw attention he said: “Not as far as I’m concerned, personally. We shouldn’t speculate as to what could happen. We will honour our contract. Mr Putin personally has been very supportive and very helpful, and we will do the same.”

Lewis Hamilton did a superb job to salvage third in Hockenheim after starting only 20th, but while he put on a brave face afterwards there was no hiding his disappointment at losing more ground in the title battle.

Hamilton dropped from 15th on the grid after receiving a five-place penalty for a gearbox change. He also changed from Brembo to Carbon Industrie discs, although that did not lead to a pitlane start for a change to the car under parc ferme, as had been feared.

His chances were hampered by damage to his front wing after a clash with Jenson Button, and the team adjusted his strategy from three stops to two in attempt to find the pace with which to challenge Valtteri Bottas for second.

“I had great fun,” he said. “I did as good as I could today. It was very hard to get through the pack safely. I had a little bit of a collision with Jenson. I honestly thought he was opening the door to let me past, he’s been a bit like that in the past race for example, so my bad on judgement there. It’s very hard to overtake at the end, they were so fast on the straights, but I’m very happy I got some points today.”

Hamilton clearly lost downforce, although he could not quantify how much the wing damage cost him.

“I couldn’t tell you. The car was a little bit different but nonetheless to still get some points today, I’m grateful and very happy with the car today that Mercedes provided us with and congratulations to Nico. It’s fantastic for him on his home soil and also for Mercedes-Benz. So I’m glad I could add some points today.”

Asked if his glass was half full or half empty, he said: “Well, I don’t really know how to answer that really. I came from last, so to get on the podium is quite an achievement, so perhaps half full.”

Kimi Raikkonen says he’s feeling 100% fit after his heavy accident at Silverstone 11 days ago.

The Finn was forced to miss the test at the same venue to give himself a chance to recover.

“I had some pain but it’s all fine,” he said today. “Actually it was in my ribs the most, that’s why I didn’t do the test, but it’s all gone away.”

Asked if he’d ever had a bigger accident, he said: “Yeah, probably I have had. Hopefully not too many more but it’s just part of the thing. It hurt a little bit but quite often you can have a quite slow accident and get badly hurt, so it’s not about that really, it was just an unfortunate thing. Nothing serious happened. It’s part of the sport.”

Meanwhile Kimi said he’s still hopeful that his season will improve.

“It’s been a difficult year, hopefully it will turn around at some point – it must, it cannot go much longer like this, it’s not fun. But this kind of thing has happened to me before and we always managed to turn it around, so I have a strong belief it will turn around. We have to just fix issues and get things as I want and I’m sure we can be back where we should be.

“I’m sure we can fix them. How fast? I hope quickly but it depends on many things. I have a contract so I’m not worried about that for the future.”