With only Winkelhock, Heidfeld and Trulli on Bridgestone's extreme wets, the latter pairing pitted under the safety car to swap over onto intermediates, but a bigger surprise was to see Hamilton – who had been permitted to unlap himself under the safety car and therefore undertake the first representative flying lap of anybody in the drying conditions – come in to change over to dry tyres.

At the re-start Winkelhock got the initial jump, and it was a feisty-looking Alonso who was all over the back of a tardy Massa for second. The Spaniard's attempt to squeeze in-between the Ferrari and the Spyker, however, failed to come off, leaving the Brazilian in the lead as Coulthard dived up the inside of team-mate Webber into third into turn one just behind.

As the two RBR machines continued to duel ferociously over the final podium spot, the next major action came down at the Dunlop Curve, as Hamilton found it had probably been a little too soon to make the switch over onto dry rubber by skating straight ahead. Though he was able to rejoin, the lap he had gained back on the leaders had been thrown away, leaving Lewis with it all to do all over again.

With Raikkonen now lying sixth, the Finn's next target was countryman Kovalainen, though the Renault ace was not willing to give up without a fight, re-passing the Ferrari after Raikkonen had finally found a way through. Indeed, there was seemingly something in the Renault water as Fisichella similarly went all the way around the outside of Barrichello for ninth place at the final chicane.

A new fastest lap from Hamilton proved the track was now finally dry enough for slicks, prompting the drivers to begin peeling into the pit-lane, though any hope Alonso may have had of leapfrogging Massa were lost to front wing adjustments during the Spaniard's stop.

With Raikkonen nipping past Webber into the first turn after the Australian ran straight on immediately upon rejoining the race, battle was back on again at the front with the Finn just six seconds adrift of his leading team-mate. The Renaults were the biggest losers of the stops, with Kovalainen and Fisichella coming in fifth and sixth respectively and rejoining down in eighth and eleventh, while Heidfeld exiting the pits right alongside team-mate Kubica would undoubtedly have been the catalyst for a rather nervous moment for BMW Motorsport Director Dr Mario Theissen…

The unfortunate Winkelhock would pull off with an engine failure after a sparkling debut that was surely beyond even the young German's wildest dreams, while Heidfeld once again got a little over-excited in the queue behind Coulthard for seventh, harpooning Ralf Schumacher into the final turn after the Toyota driver had run slightly wide on the entry, punting his aggrieved countryman out of the race.

The Finns were now irrefutably the main men on the move, with Raikkonen inexorably hunting down the two leaders and closing right onto the back of Alonso as Massa began to edge clear. A little further back, having dived past Wurz with a neat move down the inside into turn one Kovalainen began to harry Webber for fourth.

Unable to get past the Red Bull, Renault brought its young charge in for an early stop, while Takuma Sato's retirement brought Hamilton up into 14th place and, though he may have been a gaping 92 seconds in arrears, the fastest man on the track.

Fisichella's similarly early final pit-stop suggested Kovalainen's may not have been entirely opportunistic, while Raikkonen's charge seemed to have been blunted somewhat as he struggled to keep within two seconds of Alonso. Just a matter of laps later that drop-off in pace was explained as the Ferrari suddenly slowed and he failed to even make it back to his pit box, the Finn's appalling Nürburgring luck returning following retirements from the lead with McLaren in both 2003 and 2005 due to an engine blow-up and front suspension failure respectively.