Alonso's miserable afternoon continued as he spun tenth place away, whilst Heidfeld continued to harry Massa for the final podium position, the German however not benefitting from the same speed advantage that Hamilton had enjoyed earlier as Kovalainen behind sensed a sniff of a rostrum too with five laps remaining, and Raikkonen in sixth was homing in onto the back of his compatriot for good measure.
A lock-up from Trulli allowed Vettel past into the final points position, leaving the Italian to withstand the advances of Rosberg, Alonso and Bourdais behind him, whilst up front Hamilton sped serenely on to his fourth victory of the 2008 campaign one that has driven him clear at the head of the drivers' world championship standings in the presence of the last man to win for McLaren-Mercedes at Hockenheim ten years earlier, Mika Hakkinen.
Piquet held on to take a surprise if thoroughly merited second place from all the way down in 17th on the starting grid courtesy of his audacious one-stop strategy, with Massa finishing a lacklustre third, tracked across the line by Heidfeld, Kovalainen fifth and Raikkonen sixth.
Kubica and Vettel collected the final two points, ahead of the Trulli train' comprising Rosberg, Alonso and Bourdais at the close, and Coulthard, an impressive Fisichella, Nakajima,
Adrian Sutil and the luckless Button completing the finishers.
The story that everyone was talking about, however, was how
Lewis Hamilton is continuing to turn the 2008
Formula 1 World Championship on its head and how his former GP2 Series title rival is finally beginning to find his feet in the top flight.
To see the race result in full,
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