After the drama of the rainsoaked Silverstone all eyes were on Lewis Hamilton at Hockenheim to see if he could repeat his spectacular victory -and he did, despite McLaren saddling him with a poor choice of strategy. Anyone who watched Lewis in GP2 will have recognised the inevitability of his charge back to the front but Nelsinho Piquet had no reason to feel ashamed of his drive to second place. He may have been helped by Timo Glock’s massive accident and the resulting safety car but, on a day when it would have been easy to go off the road under pressure, he kept it together and held his place in front of the Ferrari of Felipe Massa. Renault’s Alan Permane said the result would boost Piquet’s confidence.

Nelson should gain confidence from this result and it should help his approach to qualifying, which is where he is struggling at the moment. It’s a fantastic result that rewards the efforts of everyone in Enstone and Viry over the last few weeks. It’s also a reward for all Nelson’s hard work.

Massa’s third place was a ray of hope for Ferrari but overall it was a disappointing day for the team. Kimi Raikkonen, who finished sixth, admitted that the team had problems.

This was definitely not the kind of race we had been hoping for. We have struggled all weekend and we have to try and understand why. Usually, our race pace is always good, but today that was not the case, because I almost always suffered with a lack of grip: only in the final stages did the situation improve a little bit, but it was never enough to be competitive.

Glock has now been released from hospital and hopes to take part in next week’s Jerez test.