Nico Rosberg won the German Grand Prix as team mate Lewis Hamilton and rival for this years drivers championship battled his way from 20th on the grid to finish 3rd.

It was an easy weekend for Rosberg, who in front of his home crowd, barley put a foot wrong all weekend. This was in stark contrast to Hamilton who crashed in qualifying as a result of brake failure. This left him stranded 15th on the grid, but he was given an automatic grid penalty on race day and demoted 5 places after his Mercedes team opted to change a damaged gearbox.

As the race got underway Rosberg drove off into the distance never to be troubled again. Behind him 3rd place Felipe Massa’s race was over before it had even begun. A first corner collision with the 4th placed McLaren of Kevin Magnussen catapulted Massa’s Williams into a barrel roll from apex to exit. Massa walked away unhurt, Magnussen finished the race in 9th behind his team mate Jenson Button.

Meanwhile Hamilton made up a couple of places at the start, and provided much of the entertainment as he ambitiously battled and quite literally barged his way through the field. Raikkonen and Button were among his unintended targets today. The Mercedes driver looked eager to catch Rosberg and started the race on the harder wearing Soft tyres opting to use the less durable Supersofts towards the end of the race.

What ever strategy Hamilton used proved too much for those in his path and he ended up finishing the race in 3rd place but he didn’t have enough left in the Supersofts to steal 2nd from the Williams of Valtterri Bottas who was just 2.2 seconds in front as the race concluded.

Nico Rosberg looked untouchable today but seemingly had it easy, Hamilton walked away by losing fewer points than could have been possible thanks to the speed of his Mercedes which allowed him to pursue and hunt down his prey but ultimately miss out on the prize of winning the race. Rosberg takes the spoils and a 14 point lead going into the next race in Hungary.

How the German Grand Prix finished: