Hamilton cruises to German GP win

Lewis Hamilton has extended his lead at the top of the World Drivers' Championship table to 19 points with a comfortable victory in the German GP at Hockenheim.

The defending champion had been forced to watch team-mate Nico Rosberg open up a 43 points gap just two months ago, but victory in six of the last seven races means Hamilton has leapfrogged the German to establish a comfortable margin in the standings.

Hamilton passed Rosberg into the first corner and led for every single lap afterwards as he cruised to a commanding win.

However, there was nothing straightforward about Rosberg's afternoon as his recent woes were added to after a disastrous start saw him drop to fourth position.

The Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen were placed second and third but Rosberg eventually made his move, overtaking Verstappen into the chicane. However, the Dutch driver slid off the track as a result and race stewards hit Rosberg with a five-second penalty for the manouevre, which was applied at his third and final stop.

As a result, Rosberg failed to put any pressure on Hamilton and had to make do with a fourth-place finish which sees him trail his rival by 19 points.

This was the third occasion this month on which Rosberg ha fallen foul of race stewards after also being hit with penalties at the Austrian and British GPs.

Rosberg now has a four-week break to try and figure out a way to somehow turn the momentum in his favour once more.

The podium finishes from Ricciardo and Verstappen sees Red Bull move into second place in the Constructors' Championship with Ferrari down to third after Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen finishing in fifth and sixth respectively.

Nico Hulkenburg's Force India came home in seventh place ahead of the McLaren of Jenson Button while the Williams of Valtteri Bottas and the second Force India of Sergio Perez completed the top 10.