Is it just coincidence that this season seems to have more exciting races than we have seen in a long time? Hockenheim is merely the latest in a long list of supposedly boring circuits that have produced great races this year. Admittedly, it took a suspension breakage on Glock's Toyota that brought out the safety car and a strange strategy decision from McLaren to enliven this one, but the result was a race to remember.
Lewis Hamilton
Without that safety car period, this GP would have been completely characterless, so great was Hamilton's advantage over everyone else. With hindsight, one might even wonder whether the team kept him out while everyone else pitted so as to set up a nail-biting finish; it certainly produced that result, including some trademark Lewis overtaking moves.
And it has to be said: Ferrari do not have the best car this year - Hamilton in a McLaren is better. Kovalainen's performance in the last few races has shown that there is very little to choose between the red and the silver cars; it is just that Hamilton seems to have inherited Alonso's fabled three tenths of a second, if not more.
The team mate situation is perhaps the most interesting factor in this battle. Ferrari have a difficult task in choosing whether to back the sometimes brilliant, sometimes average Raikkonen, or Massa, who is quick on an open track but not much of a racer. I suspect that the team are making a serious error in not leaning towards Raikkonen, whose racing skills are beyond question. It may be that an over-concentration on qualifying is also killing the Italian challenge. Just think back a few years - how often did we hear Michael Schumacher say that he was not too concerned about pace in qualifying because the Ferrari was quicker in the race? And that was when overtaking was almost unheard of.
After the disasters of 2007, McLaren have a much happier situation. There is no longer any question of which driver is quicker; Kovalainen is talented but not in the same class as Hamilton when it comes to racing. It is an ideal pairing, in fact, a driver who is becoming the best of his day and a team mate who is quick and uncomplaining. If McLaren can defeat Ferrari at Hockenheim in spite of such an awkward timing of a safety car period, then they will have to make mistakes of monumental proportions to lose both championships.
Unless BMW can work a miracle in the races to come, that is. It seems unlikely at present, with the performance gap to the big two apparently widening. The BMW was not good at this track and that was not helped by Heidfeld making a mistake on his last qualifying lap. But he came good in the race, as ever, and Kubica must be wondering how he does it.
That is a question that is worth looking at closely. Nick did this time and again last year, coming from behind to beat his team mate; is it luck or racecraft making the difference? In this race the safety car period helped Nick a lot, allowing him to leapfrog several cars that chose to pit while he stayed out. That left Nick able to be very quick in a light car until his final pit stop, thus netting fourth place. Meanwhile Kubica had fallen down the order to an eventual seventh.
So events did play into Heidfeld's hands but he was well up the order even before the SC period. Fastest laps mean little, as Kimi has so ably demonstrated over the last several races, but Heidfeld's in Germany does at least show that he is every bit as quick as his team mate, if not faster, once the tires are warmed up. Let him qualify as well as he expects to in future and I think Nick will emerge as the leading BMW contender.
Now that Piquet (of all people) has given Renault their highest finish of the year, doubts will be raised as to BMW's ability to remain the third team in F1. It was a great performance by the rookie after all his troubles this year but was hugely assisted by a one-stop strategy that proved optimal after the SC period. Renault's real position in the pecking order is better shown by Alonso's degenerating position throughout the race - the car is about on a par with the Toyotas and Red Bulls.
I do not include Toro Rosso in that group because I think that only Vettel's qualifying skills are keeping them in contention. His ninth on the grid and finish of eighth were probably better than the car deserved. Williams too are struggling to keep up, while Honda and Force India scrabble for the crumbs.
Hockenheim was an interesting race as an illustration of the comparative strengths of the teams and drivers but, without Glock's timely accident, it would have been no more than that. Instead, that broken Toyota suspension component gave us a chance to see just how good Hamilton can be when called upon to push. He begins to look unbeatable.