Red Bull’s Max Verstappen took his second win of the year in a chaotic and incident-strewn German Grand Prix held in intermittent rain.
The Dutchman led a topsy-turvey result in which Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel took second from the back of the grid and Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat was third.
Lewis Hamilton had a day to forget, finishing 11th after two mistakes.
But the Briton did not lose any ground to team-mate Valtteri Bottas in the championship after the Finn crashed.
It was a dismal way for Mercedes to end a weekend in which the team were celebrating 125 years in motorsport and their 200th Formula 1 race.
But the Mercedes drivers were not the only ones to fall foul of the treacherous conditions in a race that featured a remarkable four safety cars, two virtual safety cars and the winner made five pit stops to change back and forward between wet-weather tyres to dry ones.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc crashed when looking in strong shape for at least second place. Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg went off at the same place, the treacherous penultimate corner, which was also where Hamilton made one of his errors.
Verstappen supreme as Mercedes slip up
Through the chaos, Verstappen drove a flawless race, tracking the Mercedes in third place through the first half of the grand prix and then moving to the front as the world champions’ race fell apart.
Red Bull made all the strategy calls correctly and Verstappen judged the conditions perfectly to take a well-deserved victory which made him look the class of the field.
More to follow
