Boring race for Kimi Räikkönen and Sebastian Vettel

Ferrari is unable to close the gap with Mercedes and is now behind Red Bull, which has reclaimed its second place in the Constructors’ Championship. The departure of James Allison, their technical director, is thus a sign that the patience of the Maranello leadership is starting to reach its limits and that the time for major changes is approaching.

The German Grand Prix won’t change anything since both drivers failed to improve their pace compared to qualifying. Kimi Räikkönen’s assessment was therefore unequivocal: *It was a very calm and boring race, nothing happened. At the start, I had a bit of wheelspin and lost a place to Sebastian. With new tires, the car was behaving well but then I started to experience oversteer and understeer because we lacked grip. In the last stint, we had to save fuel. So there wasn’t much to do.*

As for Sebastian Vettel, his moment of brilliance will remain his refusal to make his third pit stop when his team requested it. The German preferred to delay his last pit stop to minimize his final stint. But this strategy didn’t work: « The decision to switch to soft tires at the end was quite obvious since we had a new set. I decided to do a few more laps because I didn’t want to do too many laps with the last set. In hindsight, it was perhaps a bit too conservative because we might have had a chance to put more pressure on the car ahead. »

But by finishing 17 seconds behind Nico Rosberg, one wonders how the Ferrari driver could have further threatened his compatriot… He can simply console himself by knowing that he was at the center of the public’s attention in his first German Grand Prix for the Scuderia, reminding the German audience of a glorious past collaboration.