Vettel recorded a historic victory on Sunday, becoming the first German ever to win a German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring.

Despite some intense competition from Lotus's Kimi Raikkonen and his teammate, Romain Grosjean, it was Vettel who got to the checkered flag first.

"Yes, baby! That was a tough one, they gave me a run for my money," Vettel shouted into his team radio as he crossed the line.

Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton had been unable to capitalize on a pole position start, being squeezed out early by Vettel and his teammate Mark Webber.

As Hamilton fell further behind, disaster struck for Webber when a replaced tire came loose and bounced across the track - causing him to fall behind and injuring a cameraman.

As the race wore on, Lotus' Grosjean and Raikkonen were in hot pursuit of Vettel. Indeed, Raikkonen mounted a real challenge until close to the end.

However, despite moving ever closer to Vettel, Raikkonen simply ran out of laps to overtake him, finishing in second place with Grosjean in third.

"I am very happy with the result and incredibly happy to finally win in Germany," said Vettel later. "I was very happy though that the race ended after 60 laps and not 61 or 62."

"It was an unbelievable race and Kimi was really pushing towards the end."

Fernando Alonso - Vettel’s closest rival for the drivers’ championship, now 36 points behind - clinched fourth place.

rc/mz (AFP/dpa)