Vettel needs to keep pressure on in German GP

HOCKENHEIM, Germany – Sebastian Vettel needs to keep the pressure on Lewis Hamilton at this weekend’s German Grand Prix.

At the midway point of the Formula One season – the 11th of 21 races – Vettel holds an eight-point lead over Hamilton.

Vettel started strongly, then Hamilton took over, and now Vettel appears to be in the ascendancy again.

While he leads Hamilton only 4-3 in wins this season, Vettel’s most recent victory was particularly poignant because it was at Hamilton’s home track at Silverstone, where the British driver has had huge success. Vettel’s win heaped more misery on Hamilton, considering he had experienced a rare retirement at the Austrian GP one week earlier.

In previous years, Ferrari was the team experiencing technical problems and frustrating inconsistency. Now the roles appear reversed, and Mercedes is the team under pressure.

“We are getting stronger and we have a very, very good group of people,” Vettel said Thursday.

After winning the last four drivers’ and constructors’ championships, often by huge margins, Mercedes lags 20 points behinds Ferrari. There have been communication errors and strategy mistakes within Mercedes. For Hamilton, who along with Vettel is vying for a fifth F1 title, these problems are hard to accept.

Last year, the pressure seemed to affect Vettel more, but this time Hamilton is the one showing signs of strain.

Rapidly overtaken from pole position at the British GP, Hamilton was then shunted off the track following a collision with Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen.

After Hamilton fought back from last place to an impressive second, he made comments about Ferrari’s “interesting tactics” – implying Raikkonen had done it on purpose as part of team strategy.