Length: 4.574 km
Number of Laps: 67 (306.458 Km)
Best Lap: K. Raikkonen - 1'13''780 (2004, Mclaren)
Record Pole: M. Schumacher - 1'13''306 (2004, Ferrari)
2005 Pole: K. Raikkonen - 1'14''320 (Mclaren)
2005 Podium: F. Alonso - JP. Montoya - J. Button

In front of his home crowd and on the Hockenheim circuit where he had already won three times, Schumacher led home his teammate Felipe Massa in a one-two victory for Ferrari.

Pole-sitter Kimi Raikkonen claimed third place for McLaren but was never in the same race as the two red cars ahead.

It quickly became clear that the Finn’s qualifying time was down to a fuelling miscalculation rather than outright pace.

He managed to lead the field off the line however required more fuel as early as lap 10 and wouldn’t see Schumacher again until parc ferme.

Jenson Button marked some form of resurgence from Honda with a fourth place finish.

The team had been buoyed by the introduction of a new specification engine and aerodynamic parts, which clearly paid dividends as Button took the fight to the front.

Unfortunately the buoyancy didn’t last so long for the Briton’s teammate, Rubens Barrichello.

The Brazilian was similarly competitive before a speculated oil line fire saw him on the side of the road and out of the race.

However Barrichello’s exit was a blessing for Fernando Alonso and Renault who struggled home to a fifth place finish.

Unreliability served the Spaniard well as both Barrichello and Williams’ Mark Webber retired from competitive positions and aided in limiting the damage to Alonso’s championship lead.

In the end just six points were lost, brining the total margin back to Schumacher down to 11 points.

Significantly however the revised total meant that should Schumacher win all of the remaining six races he would win the title, regardless of Alonso’s position.

Interviewed in the paddock at the conclusion for the race, Alonso claimed he wasn’t worried as it was still he who was in the lead.

If he wasn’t concerned then his team certainly was as Ferrari made serious inroads into not only the drivers’ championship standings, but the constructors’ as well.
Gianciarlo Fisichella had been leading the team’s fight, chasing the cars at the front and looking at a solid finish.

However the Italian’s pace quickly dropped away as the race went on and he would only finish sixth, in the end behind Alonso.

Renault made a spectacle and placed used and badly blistered Michelins in the pit lane for the world to see, appearing to lay blame for their problems at the feet of their tyre supplier.

It certainly wasn’t the actions of a team comfortable with their results and position.

Toyota and Red Bull gave the Anglo-French squad reason for further headache as their drivers looked for a fast finished and eyed up the positions of both Fisichella and Alonso.

Klien couldn’t quite catch the pair however Trulli was a serious concern as he cruised onto their tail with six laps to go and looked particularly keen to pass.

Fisichella managed to keep his countryman at bay, not aided by Alonso who at one stage thew his car onto the grass at Hockenheim’s final turn.

It was a race run in stark contrast to that of Ferrari whose only worry was the reliability of their cars.

Such was their advantage they were able to cruise and even that worry was eased, the team so confident that Chris Dyer declared to Schumacher over the radio that the championship was ‘in our hands’.

It will be interesting to see how the battle unfolds as the circus moves onto Hungary on 6 August.

Significantly Renault ran without their controversial ‘mass damper’ system in Germany as they awaited the result of the FIA’s appeal.

Should that appeal be over thrown and the use of the device allowed, Renault could make a rapid comeback in the two-week break to be on the pace in Budapest.

However, should the appeal be upheld then it will be time for serious concern in the French camp as they fight to regain the pace that has quite clearly been lost.

Former partners Williams and BMW both failed to see any of their four cars through to the finish of the German Grand Prix.

At Wililams Nico Rosberg made an early exit after admittedly running ‘too hot’ into turn one and spinning backwards off the circuit. Mark Webber was a much later casualty, retiring from fifth position nine laps from the chequer with suspected engine problems. For Webber it was his eighth retirement from 10 starts and marked the sixth race in succession that Williams had failed to score a point.

At BMW both casualities appeared to be caused by technical gremlins. First Nick Heidfeld was pulled into the garage and later Jacques Villeneuve curiously went off the circuit at turn one.

For the second race in succession Kimi Raikkonen has had problem during a pit stop. The McLaren ace lost over eight seconds during his first stop of the German Grand Prix when a mechanic struggled to removed the right-rear tyre.

Pedro de la Rosa, the Finn’s teammate, only made one stop, retiring three laps into the race.

Race stewards handed out two drive through penalties during the German Grand Prix.The first was to Toyota’s Ralf Schumacher who was stung for speeding in the pit lane. The second was for Midland’s Tiago Monteiro who was charged with ‘ignoring blue flags’.