Silverstone GP Review

For the first time this season people weren't talking about Red Bull dominating the race, the pre-race build up was overshadowed by the diffuser row, in which all the teams had to attend and agree on a solution around the reduction in use of the controversial part. Ferrari were the licking their lips in anticipation as any reduction in the use of diffusers would help thme enomously as they do not use the part in their races. Red Bull & Renault were the teams to loose out the most. This made everyone think that maybe Red Bull could be beaten this weekend as they were going to loose half a second a lap due to the outcome of the meeting.

For the second time this season Sebastian Vettel was not on Pole, it was his team mate Mark Webber, with the Australian turning out to win 12 Months ago he was optimistic ahead of the race. Red Bull continued their 100% record of locking out the front row, Ferrari were right behind them. Hamilton had a shocking qualifying sesion to end up in 10th abeit it wasnt his fault but rather his mechanics for putting old tyres on, instead of new ones. You could say this will fuel his desire to leave even more as his team arent doing him any favours. Paul Di Resta was really the star of qualifying & he sat on the grid in 6th place looking for a slim chance of a podium finish.

As the red lights went out I sort of predicted as I do every week that Mark Webber will loose atleast one position before the first corner. He didnt disapoint with Vettel getting a better start that his team mate to overtake and claim the lead. Hamilton & Schumacher doing well off the grid to move up three places each, Hamilton 10th to 7th and Schumacher 13th to 10th. From the word go Hamilton looked really up for it after a few disasterous weeks. He moved up the field supremely well even without crashing into people. The same cannot be said for Paul Di Resta who although gained his best position this season decided he would go backwards, he may as well have put his car in reverse straight away. Loosing positions to Rosberg & Kobayashi quickly and then deicded to crash into Schumacher to knock his wing off. Schumacher was deemed at fault for the accident and he was given a 10 second drive through penalty meaning he had to not only drive through the pits without having any work done he had to sit in his pit for 10 seconds. This meant he lost a third of a lap on his rivals.

If it wasnt for Hamilton Silverstone would have been pretty dull for the first 30 laps. However we have to thanks the pit-lane machnaics for brightening up the race. First of all for letting Kobayashi go when traffic was coming down the pit-lane leading him to nearly crash, in which he paid a penalty for a 10 second drive through penalty similar to Schumacher. Red Bull made the next error when both Vettel & Alonso coming into the pits at the same time, with the Red Bull Mechanics taking ages to send Vettel back out meaning Alonso overtook the German in the pit lane. Force India decided to catch the contageous bug as well and try to put Sutil's tyres on Di Resta's car. The final cock-up of the day was MClaren & it was the biggest of the lot as it costs Jenson Button his race. The Mechanic needed to change bolt guns in order to get the front right tyre to stay on, however when he put his gun down the lollipop man gave the green light & Jenson obliged driving out of his pit with his wheel not on properly. Button noticed the error and pulled up just out of the pit lane ending his race.

At this point Hamilton had made it up to 3rd Place behind Alonso & Vettel. Then on his radio he got the news no driver wants to hear, "Lewis you need to maintain your fuel in order to finish the race". Meaning he had to slow down in order to be able to last out the race. On public radio's this is always a bad thing to state to your driver, Webber & Massa hearing over the radio that they should attack Hamilton as he has to slow down. The MClaren driver allowing Webber to overtake him as he had no choice. It came down to the last 2 laps and the engineers told Hamilton he could now race at full pace again. Massa was right behind him at this point, it was a last lap shootout between Hamilton & Massa. It wasnt too long ago in Monaco that thesse two drivers had been side by side with each other (that one ended up with Massa going into the wall). This one ended up with Hamilton nudging Massa off the road luckily there was no wall for the Brazilian to crash into this time. Hamilton finished 0.0283 ahead of the Ferrari driver to claim a good 4th place.

Here are the race results:

1 Fernando Alonso Ferrari Winner
2 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull +16.5 secs
3 Mark Webber Red Bull +16.9 secs
4 Lewis Hamilton McLaren +28.9 secs
5 Felipe Massa Ferrari +29.0 secs
6 Nico Rosberg Mercedes GP +60.6 secs
7 Sergio Perez Sauber +65.5 secs
8 Nick Heidfeld Renault +75.5 secs
9 Michael Schumacher Mercedes GP +77.9 secs
10 Jaime Alguersuari Toro Rosso +79.1 secs
11 Adrian Sutil Force India +79.7 secs
12 Vitaly Petrov Renault +80.6 secs
13 Rubens Barrichello Williams +1 Lap
14 Pastor Maldonado Williams +1 Lap
15 Paul di Resta Force India +1 Lap
16 Timo Glock Virgin Racing +2 Laps
17 Jerome d’Ambrosio Virgin Racing +2 Laps
18 Vitantonio Liuzzi HRT +2 Laps
19 Daniel Ricciardo HRT +3 Laps
Ret Jenson Button McLaren +13 Laps
Ret Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso +27 Laps
Ret Kamui Kobayashi Sauber +29 Laps
Ret Jarno Trulli Lotus Oil leak
Ret Heikki Kovalainen Lotus Gearbox


Driver of the day - Lewis Hamilton

Rookie of the day - Sergio Perez

Chumps of the day - Pit Stop Mechanics

Bad day at the office- Paul Di Resta