The 60-lap race was won by local driver Sebastian Vettel, driving a Red Bull after starting from second position on the grid.

Lewis Hamilton, who started from pole position driving a Mercedes, ended up finishing 5th, only a second ahead of his former teammate Jenson Button.

In the aftermath of the British Grand Prix, in which four drivers experienced explosive punctures at some of the fastest points of the Silverstone Circuit, tyre supplier Pirelli announced plans to alter the structure of the tyres for the German Grand Prix, ahead of a more-permanent solution to be introduced at the next race in Hungary.

[6] The new tyres replaced the steel belts used in the rear wheels with Kevlar in order to lower the operating temperature by up to 10 °C (18 °F) and reduce the likelihood of explosive punctures.

[7] This followed a similar incident at the 2011 Belgian Grand Prix, where teams used camber settings outside Pirelli's recommendations, which created blistering on the inside edge of the tyres as they experienced higher-than-normal operating temperatures.

The drivers eliminated in Q1, were Valtteri Bottas, Pastor Maldonado, Charles Pic, Jules Bianchi, Giedo van der Garde and Max Chilton.

Jean-Éric Vergne was eliminated, as well as Adrian Sutil, Esteban Gutiérrez, Sergio Pérez and Paul di Resta.

Webber's Red Bull was pushed back to his pitbox where a new wheel was fitted and he rejoined the race, a lap behind Vettel.

Pastor Maldonado, driving in the 600th grand prix race for the Williams F1 Team, was in the points in eighth, along with his team-mate and rookie Valtteri Bottas in tenth.

Lotus waited until lap 49 to pit Räikkönen, switching him to the soft tyre, which left Vettel and Grosjean in first and second, with Alonso a threat from behind in fourth place.

Rosberg, struggling to keep his Mercedes on the pace, finished ninth at his home race while Nico Hülkenberg took the final point for Sauber.

Williams had a poor ending to their milestone race, with Maldonado and Bottas finishing fifteenth and sixteenth respectively after wheel gun problems in their pitstops.

Red Bull were fined €30,000 after the right-rear tyre from Mark Webber's car became detached as the Australian left his pit box.

Allen, who remained conscious after the incident, was treated at the circuit's medical centre before being helicoptered to Koblenz Hospital for observation.

Force India, meanwhile, were given a €5,000 fine after releasing Paul di Resta into the path of Toro Rosso's Jean-Éric Vergne.