The 2018 German Grand Prix (officially known as the Formula 1 Emirates Grosser Preis von Deutschland 2018) was a Formula One motor race held on 22 July 2018 at the Hockenheimring in Germany. The race was the 11th round of the 2018 Formula One World Championship and marked the 77th running of the German Grand Prix, and the 63rd time the race had been run as a World Championship event since the inaugural season in .
Lewis Hamilton won the Grand Prix from 14th on the grid, leading a Mercedes 1–2 ahead of teammate Valtteri Bottas after race leader and pole sitter Sebastian Vettel crashed out in light rain conditions. The race was not without controversy as Hamilton was seen to abort a pit stop late in the race, cutting across the infield to rejoin the circuit which was against the international sporting code. He was reprimanded for the rules violation but was allowed to keep his race win. As a result of the race, Mercedes and Hamilton advanced to first place from second in the Constructors' and the Drivers' championship standings respectively.
Background Formally known as the "Formula 1 Emirates Großer Preis von Deutschland 2018" this was a Formula One race which was held on 22 July 2018. This was the first German Grand Prix since 2016 and it took place at the Hockenheimring near Hockenheim in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It was the 11th round of 21 in the 2018 Formula One World Championship. The race marked the 77th running of the German Grand Prix and it was the 63rd time it was run as part of the World Championship since the inaugural season.
Several teams brought car upgrades to this race. Ferrari brought a new exhaust system and a new rear wing. Renault brought an updated front wing and Williams brought an updated aerodynamic package.
Championship standings before the race Before the race, Ferrari driver, Sebastian Vettel lead the World Drivers' Championship, with Lewis Hamilton in second place, eight points behind. In the World Constructors' Championship, Ferrari held a twenty–point lead over second placed Mercedes.
Entrants
There were no stand in drivers for the race but Nicholas Latifi and Antonio Giovinazzi drove in the first practice session instead of Esteban Ocon and Marcus Ericsson for Force India and Sauber respectively.
Tyres
Tyre supplier Pirelli selected the medium, soft and ultrasoft tyres for the Grand Prix weekend. Of the three the ultrasoft was the least durable but offered the most grip with the medium tyres being the most durable but offering the least grip. In addition to this Pirelli brought the intermediate and full wet tyres for light and heavy standing water conditions respectively.
Practice As stated in the sporting regulations, three practice sessions were held, the first two were held on the Friday and were each ninety minutes in length with the last practice session taking place on the Saturday, before qualifying, lasting 60 minutes in length.
The first practice session passed without incident and ended with Daniel Ricciardo being fastest for Red Bull. The second practice session also passed without incident and ended with the other Red Bull of Max Verstappen being fastest with Lewis Hamilton finishing a close second in both practice sessions.
Analysis suggested that Hamilton had the strongest one-lap pace, with a mistake costing him the fastest overall time across the opening two practice sessions. Vettel was reported as being confident after practice, with Ferrari having made gains between practice and qualifying in previous rounds, describing the car as "working well". Haas were the fourth-strongest team on one-lap pace, ahead of Sauber. Red Bull had the strongest race pace, approximately 0.2 seconds ahead of Mercedes and Ferrari. Red Bull were unable to do a long-run on the ultrasoft tyres, with Verstappen missing thirty minutes of practice. The fourth fastest team was Renault.
Hamilton downplayed his advantage, stating that he expected his strongest challenge to come from Ferrari, who had a reputation of sandbagging. Verstappen stated that he believed his team, Red Bull, would be able to challenge for the win. Renault driver Nico Hülkenberg stated that he had a "difficult day", where he suffered with tyre-blistering issues. Hülkenberg was testing a new front wing during practice, he was unable to determine the performance gains from the front wing due to limited running, although he would run it across the rest of the weekend. Williams brought an upgraded front and rear wing to test at the event. Both drivers were positive about the changes, and the team elected to continue running the new-spec wings for the remainder of the weekend. Stoffel Vandoorne described the opening day of action as "my worst Friday for a long time", finishing last in both sessions, stating that something was not working with the car.
Whereas the first two practice sessions were dry, final practice took place in heavy rain and as a result only nine drivers set a lap time as the heavy rain would cause the session to provide little useful data. The session ended with Charles Leclerc quickest in his Sauber, ahead of teammate Marcus Ericsson and Williams' Sergey Sirotkin.
Qualifying As per the regulations, qualifying consisted of three parts, lasting 18, 15 and 12 minutes in length and entitled Q1, Q2 and Q3 respectively, with five drivers being eliminated after each of the first two sessions. The drivers who made it into Q3 would have to start the race on the tyres they had used to set their fastest lap time in Q2.
Qualifying report
Qualifying started in overcast conditions with an air temperature of , a relatively cool track temperature of and high humidity. Although the track was dry enough for slick tyres the track was still damp in places, this along with the rain earlier in the day meant that a high level of track evolution was expected. There was also a high chance of rain latter in the session.
During the first part of qualifying, Kimi Räikkönen set the fastest time for Ferrari. Esteban Ocon, Pierre Gasly, Brendon Hartley, Lance Stroll and Stoffel Vandoorne were eliminated as they finished in the bottom five of the classification. World Championship contender Lewis Hamilton set a time fast enough to progress into Q2, before suffering a hydraulics issue, being unable to change gears. Hamilton was instructed to pull over at the side of the track, to prevent damaging the power unit further.
After around eight minutes Marcus Ericsson made a mistake at the Sachs curve spinning into the gravel trap. As he made it out of the run-off area, he left gravel on the track. This caused the red flag to be waved after several drivers complained about the gravel on the track. After the gravel had been cleared there were still seven minutes of the session left. At the session end positions eleven to fifteen were taken by Alonso, Sirotkin, Ericsson, Hamilton and Ricciardo, eliminating them from qualifying. Neither Hamilton nor Ricciardo contested the session, Riccardo due to an impeding grid penalty meaning he would start at the back regardless of his qualifying position. All of the drivers who had gotten into Q3 had set their times on the ultrasoft tyres meaning they would all have to start on that tyre.
In the final segment of qualifying, it was Sebastian Vettel who secured pole position, with an outright lap record of 1 minute and 11.212 seconds. Valtteri Bottas was second, two tenths of a second further back, ahead of Vettel's teammate Kimi Räikkönen in third. The top ten was rounded out by Max Verstappen, Kevin Magnussen, Romain Grosjean, Nico Hülkenberg, Carlos Sainz Jr, Charles Leclerc and Sergio Pérez in tenth.
Post qualifying Sebastian Vettel described his qualifying lap as one of his "best moments" in Formula One with his pole making him the favourite for the race. Charles Leclerc was also pleased with his qualifying position of ninth place after he suffered from brake problems in qualifying with Kevin Magnussen also pleased with his qualifying which gave Haas their best ever qualifying result in fifth and sixth. After spinning in Q2, Marcus Ericsson said he was disappointed with his qualifying and that he thought they would be able to get into the top ten for the race. Another driver who thought they could get into the points after a disappointing qualifying was Esteban Ocon who would start the race in fifteenth after he only got one session of dry running in practice limiting his preparation for qualifying. Stoffel Vandoorne and Lance Stroll both put their poor qualifying performances down to bad balance in their respective cars. Toro Rosso also suffered from a disappointing qualifying, they were optimistic heading into the race stating that they had some of the best long run pace from the other midfield teams.
Qualifying classification DriverConstructorQ1Q2Q315 Sebastian VettelFerrari1:12.5381:12.5051:11.2121277 Valtteri BottasMercedes1:12.9621:12.1521:11.416237 Kimi RäikkönenFerrari1:12.5051:12.3361:11.5473433 Max VerstappenRed Bull Racing-TAG Heuer1:13.1271:12.1881:11.8224520 Kevin MagnussenHaas-Ferrari1:13.1051:12.5231:12.200568 Romain GrosjeanHaas-Ferrari1:12.9861:12.7221:12.5446727 Nico HülkenbergRenault1:13.4791:12.9461:12.5607855 Carlos Sainz Jr.Renault1:13.3241:13.0321:12.6928916 Charles LeclercSauber-Ferrari1:13.0771:12.9951:12.71791011 Sergio PérezForce India-Mercedes1:13.4271:13.0721:12.774101114 Fernando AlonsoMcLaren-Renault1:13.6141:13.657N/A111235 Sergey SirotkinWilliams-Mercedes1:13.7081:13.702N/A12139 Marcus EricssonSauber-Ferrari1:13.5621:13.736N/A131444 Lewis HamiltonMercedes1:13.012No timeN/A14153 Daniel RicciardoRed Bull Racing-TAG Heuer1:13.318No timeN/A191631 Esteban OconForce India-Mercedes1:13.720N/AN/A151710 Pierre GaslyScuderia Toro Rosso-Honda1:13.749N/AN/A201828 Brendon Hartley1:14.045N/AN/A161918 Lance StrollWilliams-Mercedes1:14.206N/AN/A17202McLaren-Renault1:14.401N/AN/A18107% time: 1:17.580Source: Notes – Daniel Ricciardo received a 20-place grid penalty for exceeding his quota of power unit elements. – Pierre Gasly received a 30-place grid penalty for exceeding his quota of power unit elements.
Race The race was scheduled to start at 15:10 local time (13:10 UTC) and was scheduled to last 67 laps with an upper time limit of 2 hours per the 2018 regulations.
Race report
The race started in dry conditions, with a high chance of rain later in the race. As they went through turn 1 it was Sebastian Vettel who led for Ferrari followed by Valtteri Bottas and Kimi Räikkönen. Of the front runners, Räikkönen was the first to make a pitstop on lap 14 switching onto the soft tyres, Vettel and Bottas made their opening pitstops on laps 24 and 28 respectively. With the leaders on lap 29, the race saw its first retirement in the form of Ricciardo with what transpired to be power loss, this did not disrupt the rhythm of the race as his car was recovered quickly. On the same lap Ricciardo's teammate Max Verstappen made his first pit stop. On lap 29, it was Räikkönen who led, followed by Vettel, Hamilton (yet to make his compulsory pitstop) and Bottas. After a couple of laps Vettel slowed down after complaining of overheating tyres from being with a couple of seconds behind Räikkönen and on lap 39 Räikkönen was told to let his teammate through.