Lewis Hamilton Nico Rosberg Mercedes
Mercedes' drivers Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton placed 1st and 3rd at the German GP.Reuters

Doubts of a heavy downpour notwithstanding, Sunday produced a thriller of a race at the German GP,  where local boy Nico Rosberg rung in his fourth victory of the season and with it, extended his overall lead by 14 points.

Rosberg, with his momentous win, added a cherry on top of an eventful week, where first he basked in the glory of a wedding with his long-time girlfriend, followed up by a multi-year extension of his contract with team Mercedes.

"It's an amazing feeling to win at home. It's a very special day," said Rosberg, whilst expressing his joy of being the first German to win at home with a German car and engine.

Meanwhile, fellow Mercedes mate Hamilton, overcame a barrage of difficulties to put on display some spectacular racing, with some even calling it the best performance of the day, to claim a podium finish while narrowly missing out on clinching the second position.

Despite starting the race from the 20th position, having suffered a slight altercation with Jenson Button's Mclaren and going through a last minute two to three stop strategy change, Hamilton made brilliant headway during the first few laps of the race, racing past Daniel Ricciardio and Kimi Raikkonen to reach the 7th spot by the 13th lap and ultimately finish third, to make it a double podium finish for Mercedes.

"I did as good as I could today," It was really tough to get through the pack safely and I had a bit of a collision with Jenson. I honestly thought he was opening the door to let me pass - he's been a bit like that in the last race, for example - but it was my bad judgement. And at the end it was very difficult to overtake [ Valtteri Bottas] but I'm just glad we got some points." he said on the podium.

Bottas reeled in his third successive podium finish of the season by claiming the second spot and collecting 18 points for Williams with Red Bull narrowly missing out on a podium finish as Sebastian Vettel placed 4th, followed by Ferrari's Fernando Alonso.

In a race fueled by high octane drama, two unlikely mishaps besieged the contest, where first, Felipe Massa had to bear the brunt of an unlucky crash caused by Kevin Magnussen's Mclaren, followed by Daniil Kvyat's car catching fire.

In what looked like Massa's car trying its hand at floor gymnastics, managed to somersault after hitting Magnussen's car at the first corner, before hitting the tarmac to create friction fireworks.

Massa, who surprisingly escaped unhurt, said: "I am very frustrated because first of all it is a race where I had a good car. I didn't want to be too aggressive at the first corner and fighting with my teammate.

"I backed off a little bit and then another car just hit me behind and there is nothing I can do. It is really disappointing."

Kvyat's car caught fire on lap 42 and was quickly engulfed in flames, with a battery pack failure being assumed to be the cause of the mishap.

Sahara Force India witnessed a good race as well, with both drivers Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez registering a top 10 finish.

Their combined effort clinched 7 points for the team, who now get to maintain their fifth position on the constructor's table.

The tarmac at Hockenheimring clearly seemed to wreak havoc for almost the entire gamut of the racers with Hulkenberg stating, "I also had to overcome some engine issues in the middle of the race because there were some hesitations and it was not driving smoothly. It was a good recovery by the team to solve the issue."

"It was a very strange race, the track changed a lot compared to Friday and it was the front tyres that were suffering from degradation and not the rears. Together with the much lower temperatures, it made the car very difficult to drive. These things considered, to come away with a point was a good result in the end," said Perez, asserting the German's view.