As two-week periods go, the last 13 days have been pretty good for Nico Rosberg, and they got even better on Sunday after he dominated the German Grand Prix to win his home race for the first time.
On a day of home celebrations, Rosberg cruised to an accomplished victory for Mercedes to increase his lead over teammate Lewis Hamilton to 14 points.
Rosberg's win, which was also his first podium appearance at a German race, came after a week in which he married long-time girlfriend Vivian Sibold, claimed the pole position, signed an extended contract with Mercedes and celebrated Germany's Fifa World Cup victory.
“It’s fantastic,” Rosberg said. “It’s an amazing feeling to win at home. It’s a very special day. This weekend with pole and the win is awesome. I didn’t expect such a big advantage in the race.”
While it was Rosberg who took centre stage, he rarely featured in the coverage at Hockenheim – the other 21 drivers on the grid, like the viewers, hardly saw him, apart from the start and finish.
The real entertainment was watching the Mercedes-GP car of Lewis Hamilton stage another great escape as he turned 20th place on the grid into a third-place finish, just 1.8 seconds adrift of the Williams of Valtteri Bottas, who finished runner-up for the second successive race.
The Briton cut his way through the field and survived making contact with the Sauber of Adrian Sutil, Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari and Jenson Button’s McLaren-Mercedes to minimise his points loss to Rosberg to just 10 points as he fell 14 points adrift of his teammate with nine races remaining.
Rosberg rarely featured on the TV screens as he cruised at the front, the television director occasionally cutting back to him as he overtook a backmarker.
Once he claimed a lead of 10 seconds in the opening laps over Bottas, he seemed in control, although he suffered a scare when there was a safety-car period after Sutil spun and stalled his Sauber on the start-finish straight on Lap 47.
Marshals were able to eventually wheel the car off the track, but the car sat dangerously close to the racing line for several laps, and Rosberg acknowledged he feared his afternoon was about to get more complicated.
“I definitely got a bit worried when I saw Sutil out there, as I thought it would be a safety car,” he said.
“That would have made it more difficult. But it was a great finish for me in the end.”
The race had a feel of 2013 about it, with high tyre wear on the track and many in the field having to make three stops for changes, though both Rosberg and Bottas were able to get through on just two trips to the pit area.
Hamilton intended to get through on two, but he chose mid-race to move to three as he struggled with tyre conversation and minor front wing damage caused by a collision with Button. He completed several fine passing moves, most done with late braking at the tight right-hander at Turn 6.
His job was made even harder as a result of brake failure that caused him to crash in qualifying, and he had fallen a further five places as a result of the penalty received for changing his gearbox following the heavy impact of Saturday's accident.
“I had great fun,” the 2008 world champion said. “I did as good as I could.
“It was hard to get through the pack safely and I had a little bit of a collision with Jenson.
“I thought he [Rosberg] was going to open the door, which he has done a couple of times lately, but that was my bad judgement. It was hard to overtake, so I’m glad to get some points today.”
Bottas conserved his tyres well during the final stint to successfully hold off Hamilton, and the Finn said: “I feel really happy again, being third time in a row on the podium. These guys [Mercedes] were too quick today, but I’m really happy that we at least managed to keep one of them behind.”
Sebastian Vettel was fourth for Red Bull Racing, with the world champion coming home just ahead of Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, who survived a wheel-to-wheel tussle with the Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo.
Nico Hulkenberg was the third German in the top 10, finishing seventh in his Force India, ahead of Button, with the second McLaren of Kevin Magnussen and the second Force India of Sergio Perez completing the points-scoring positions.
sports@thenational.ae
Follow us on Twitter at @SprtNationalUAE