Our regular GP reporter Winston D'Arcy is "too depressed" to write a report. You can't really blame him, after Hamilton inflicted so much pain on the Ferraris.

What else can you say? It was a mesmeric performance of virtuoso driving by Lewis Hamilton in whose wake the others, particularly the Ferraris, were left floundering.

The German GP returned to Hockenheim for the first time since 2006, a track which has been "Tilkered" although he managed one corner where it was possible to overtake. It may seem that nothing changes much in F1, but half the grid had not been at the previous race at the venue.

There were two halves to this race, the first one of unimaginable tedium when Hamilton just disappeared into the distance and opened up a twelve second gap to Massa.

It then looked like Timo Glock's Toyota suspension shattered whilst going over the kerbs. He suffered a heavy rear-end impact and the Safety Car was deployed. Unaccountably, McLaren failed to pit Hamilton as they did not anticipate the SC period would last as long as it did. Massa did pit, got in effect a "free" pit stop, and this left Hamilton with the seemingly-impossible task of opening up a 23 second gap in nine laps to retain the lead after his own stop. Surely this was Ferrari's chance to snatch victory?

Hamilton managed to claw back 15 seconds, pitted and re-joined in fifth place, and the Tifosi's hearts soared - we would win! Obviously Kovalainen let Hamilton through and leader Heidfeld then pitted. Hamilton was now third, with the one-stopping Piquet in the lead. Hamilton closed in on second-place Massa unbelievably quickly and made one over-ambitious lunge which showed how worked up he was and must have set hearts fluttering in the Macca garage [didn't think they had any - Ed.].

He was not to be denied and drafted up to Massa's rear heading towards the hairpin, where followed a frankly comic display of defensive driving by the Brazilian. He gave a beginner's wobble, then unbelievably moved to the outside, leaving the door wide open for the McLaren. There was a half-hearted defensive twitch, but Hamilton moved him firmly but fairly off the track on the outside and was gone. Three laps later he did the same thing in the same place to young Piquet, who is a beginner and who wisely did not resist, wishing to hang onto his second place, which must have seemed truly like manna from heaven. Not only could Massa not do anything to resist Hamilton, he could not even find enough to attack Piquet, coming home third and blaming overheating brakes.

Raikkonen had another of those off weekends where he was never in the hunt, or showed any spark, coming home fifth. Surely his mind is already on his pension..... By contrast, Fernando Alonso showed plenty of fight but it did him more harm than good as every time he tried to pass someone, he generally ended up losing a place and he came home 11th, so you begin to question whether there is any point in a driver fighting if his car isn't quick enough. If so, it's not much good for us fans. The news did emerge that Santander will become Ferrari sponsors in 2010 and that Alonso is only looking for a one year deal next year, which suggests even more strongly that he will end up at Ferrari.

The big news off-track was Max Mosely winning his invasion of privacy action against the News of the World. There's all sorts of other stuff going on to do with the future of F1, like the teams acting together - which is all about money of course. Winston may have a view on this, if he ever comes back. Let's hope Ferrari deliver a performance in Hungary which encourages him to do so.....

Oh, and have a read of Domenicali's press guff below - we can now talk about the 'management' of a car rather than the driving of it. Gives a new dimension when you are next up in front of the beak.

Click here to return to the Ferrari Happenings page.