Nico Hulkenberg disappointed by German Grand Prix race slump

The Force India driver started from the second row of the grid after a strong qualifying showing in the wet, but his pace in the dry did not allow him to fight to retain the position.

Hulkenberg dropped to ninth place in the end, scoring two points for his team, but said after his promising Saturday he was hoping for a better result.

"We always knew it was going to be tough to hang on to fourth place because we did not look especially strong in the dry conditions on Saturday morning," said Hulkenberg. "But when you're in that position you hope for the best and actually the first part of the race was strong for me and I had some good battles.

"In terms of strategy, doing three stops was the way forward because a two-stop race was not possible with the way the tyres were degrading. So it's good to come away with some points but I was certainly hoping for a bit more from my home race."

Paul di Resta finished outside the points in 11th, the Scot left believing a more aggressive strategy may have helped his cause in the race.

"A tough race today and ultimately we didn't have the pace to match teams like Lotus and Sauber," he said. "The story of the race was deciding whether to stop two or three times and with hindsight we probably could have been more aggressive. But it was hard to understand the tyres and we seemed to struggle for pace in the middle of each stint.

"I think we have the baseline speed in the car but we just couldn't demonstrate it today and that's why I missed out on points. Hopefully we can find the sweet spot next weekend before the summer break."