Lewis Hamilton has won the 2011 German Grand Prix. The McLaren driver took the gong at Nurburgring ahead of Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and Red Bull’s Mark Webber. It was Hamilton’s second win this season after China, and his 16th career victory.

Current world champion Sebastian Vettel had a quiet race by his standards – enduring a big spin on lap 10 after an uncharacteristic mistake of putting his wheels on the grass while at that – and finished fourth, ahead of Felipe Massa of Ferrari, though there was a final flourish from both at the very end of the race.

The two drivers pitted at the same time a lap from the end for hard tyres, and while Massa led Vettel in, the Red Bull crew managed to get the German out ahead of the Brazilian. Still, it was Vettel’s first no-podium finish this season.

Finishing in sixth was Adrian Sutil of Force India, followed by the two Mercedes GP Petronas cars of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher. In ninth was Kamui Kobayashi of Sauber, while 10th place went to Vitaly Petrov of Lotus Renault.

Meanwhile, it was another day to forget for the other man at McLaren, Jenson Button. Things may not have been as dramatically painful as that in the British GP a fortnight ago, but a retirement is a retirement, however it comes – the end for the 2009 world champion came on lap 36 when a hydraulics problem put him out.

Pole-sitter Webber had a poor start to the race, allowing Hamilton to get the jump on him at the first turn, and he was almost taken too – on either side – by the two Ferraris, though that moment came to pass and it eventually settled into the usual strategy game and seeing if staying out longer – or coming in early – on a particular compound could prove an inspired choice.

While that dictated things, the race itself was far from dull – there were certainly enough moments of bravado, first from Webber on lap 32 in attempting to overtake Hamilton as the Englishman came out from the pits after a tyre change, though that maneouvre, which almost came to the point of contact, didn’t come off for the Australian.

Then it was Hamilton’s turn to do the same to Alonso a lap later as the Ferrari came out of the pits, and through sheer muscle, the 2008 champion darted past the Spaniard. Once in the lead, Hamilton edged away from the two-time champion.

Towards the end, the leading pack attempted to stretch their softs for as long as they could – Hamilton traded to the hards on lap 51, Alonso two laps later, and Webber holding out until only four laps from the end, a gamble which didn’t pay off. In the end, Hamilton cruised to a comfortable victory, and set the fastest lap of the race two laps before the chequered flag.

Beyond the racing, what is perhaps more telling is the fact that the previously all-conquering Red Bulls are starting to look quite mortal after all. Vettel still holds a commanding lead in the drivers championship, 77 points ahead of second-placed Webber, but if the last two races are anything to go by, it’s going to be a very interesting run to the end of the season. Has the RBR juggernaut finally been derailed? Next weekend’s race in Hungary should provide more clues.

You can check out the full results here.

Red Bull’s Mark Webber has clinched his second consecutive pole position, this time at the Nurburgring for the 2011 German GP. McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton surprised everyone and managed to secure himself a front row start with his second place. He was just 0.055 seconds slower than Webber’s pole time.

Championship leader Sebastian Vettel only managed third in his Renault-powered Red Bull which interestingly makes this his worst qualifying result through out the 2011 season. Winner of the previous race Fernando Alonso settled with fourth place in his scarlet Ferrari, just ahead of Brazilian team mate Felipe Massa. Nico Rosberg out-qualified his more experienced team mate yet again with his sixth place for the Mercedes GP Petronas outfit.

Jenson Button in the other McLaren only managed seventh ahead of Force India’s Adrian Sutil and Lotus Renault’s Vitaly Petrov. Michael Schumacher will start tomorrow’s race from tenth on the grid.

Team Lotus’ Heikki Kovalainen has to make do with 19th, behind Sauber’s Japanese ace Kamui Kobayashi. Team mate Karun Chandhok who takes over the wheel from Jarno Trulli for this race secured 21st, ahead of the Virgin of Jerome d’Ambrosio and the two HRT drivers. It would be an interesting race tomorrow as Alonso is expected to shake up the front row.

You can view the full qualifying results here.

Team Lotus is giving Karun Chandhok his first F1 start since last year’s British GP. The Indian driver will take Jarno Trulli’s place alongside Heikki Kovalainen at the Nurburgring. Chandhok is Team Lotus’ reserve driver, and has been behind the wheel of the T128 in practice sessions at Australia, Turkey, Valencia and Silverstone this year. This arrangement is a one-race affair.

Team boss Tan Sri Tony Fernandes said: “I want to take this chance to thank Jarno for helping make Karun’s opportunity this weekend possible. He has been extremely accommodating in stepping to the side for this race and our commitment to him is unwavering.”

The AirAsia chief brushed off talks that Trulli will be permanently replaced. “I am delighted to confirm that we are in the process of negotiating an extension to his contract with us and we are all looking forward to unveiling the details of that very soon. He is a key member of our team and I hope that we can give him a car as soon as possible that allows him to utilise his considerable talent to the full.

“For this weekend he will be on hand to lend his huge experience and support to Karun and I am sure Jarno, Heikki and Karun will do me, the whole team and all our fans very proud indeed,” Fernandes added.

Chandhok was 1.5 seconds off Heikki’s pace in Friday practice.

After launching the T128 back in January this year, Team Lotus COO Keith Saunt said: “A lot of people might say I’m too optimistic, but I’d like to think we’ll get between 40 and 50 points this year. I think we’re targeting eighth strategically, but I doubt there’ll be a lot between sixth, seventh and eighth. Depending on how the other guys are doing, seventh could be achievable.”

It must pain Mr Saunt every time he’s reminded of that statement, as we’re now at the half way point of the season, and Team Lotus still has not scored its first point in F1. Their best placing was 13th in Australia and Monaco, both courtesy of Jarno Trulli. Teammate Heikki Kovalainen now admits that they’ve aimed too high.

“I would say that our expectations were too high. Though we have closed the gap compared to last year, where we were five seconds behind, now we are 2.5-3s behind, so we have taken a lot of steps forward,” he told Autosport

“But now, looking into year two and into the midfield if you like, many teams are stuck there. The reason for this is because it is very, very tough – and at the moment we are still missing the facilities. We don’t have a good enough factory. I don’t think our wind tunnel is good enough.

“We have a lot of good people in the team but, at the moment, I don’t think you can judge them, because the tools that they have are not good enough yet.

“So we need to give the people better tools to actually show what everyone can do – including myself. I have no single doubts about my own ability and, at the moment, I am very happy about the situation and my position in Team Lotus,” the Finn added.

What’s your view on this?

The flip flop bug has hit the FIA, which has now made a U-turn on its decision to ban blown diffusers in Formula 1. This means that the off-throttle blown diffuser is now legal again, after all parties unanimously agreed that the ban should be rescinded.

The issue reached boiling point at the British GP, where concessions (first to Mercedes engines) and counter concessions (Renault engines) caused anger in the paddock. FIA then realised what they’ve gotten themselves into, and rolled back the whole thing “to be fair”. Sounds avoidable if there was proper consultation. Here’s the official explanation:

“The matter was still being discussed because one engine manufacturer (Renault Sport) was reluctant to run with the settings we had imposed and continued to try and convince us that they would require alternative settings in order to maintain their perfect reliability record. At the last minute additional information was provided to us which we felt would be hard to refuse having already made a small concession to another manufacturer (Mercedes Benz).

“However, further discussions on Friday evening and Saturday morning resulted in us deciding that we had conceded too much and, to be fair to the manufacturers who had presented cars in what we considered the correct configuration, we should revert to the specification we had specified in our note to the teams on 20 June. This is how all teams then ran on Saturday and Sunday in Silverstone,” FIA said.

This would not be an issue next season, as teams have agreed to a new exhaust tailpipe position that exits the bodywork much higher up, and no longer in the vicinity of the diffuser. Any aerodynamic benefit will be kept to an absolute minimum as a result.

However, I have a feeling that some clever team will find a loophole and derive some benefit out of the new layout. The others will protest, and we go back to square one