Webber conquers Silverstone from Hamilton

Race winner Mark Webber celebrates at the end of the British GP

Jul.11 (YallaF1.com) Mark Webber powered his Red Bull to victory in the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. The Australian made a rocket start to take the lead exiting Turn 1 whereupon he went on to dominate proceedings until the chequered flag dropped.

Joy for Mark Webber on the podium

Not even a brief safety car period, deployed to retrieve debris, which compacted the field and brought his challengers into his mirrors, was enough to fluster the Aussie who simply put his foot down and took command at the restart.

He quipped over the radio as he crossed the line, “Not bad for a number two driver.”

Webber said afterwards, “I did the best job I could and it worked out OK. I enjoyed the grand prix, it was a good fight with Lewis Hamilton. The car was faultless. I made a good start and I was very keen to hold my corner and it worked out for me.”

Pole sitter Sebastian Vettel’s challenge for the win lasted a couple of corners where he was out muscled by Red Bull team mate exiting Turn 1 before suffering a puncture a few corners later. He recovered to finish seventh.

The pre-race favourite might have felt aggrieved that he was bundled off track on the exit of turn one by his very own team mate, he may even feel somewhat unlucky to have been tapped by Hamilton’s front wing. But in the end that’s racing…

Lewis Hamilton was delighted to take second for McLaren Mercedes and extend his World Championship points lead in front of his home 115,000 strong crowd. A good result for the Woking team whose updates earmarked for Silverstone had to be dismantled as they proved to be uncompetitive

A good result for Championship points leader Lewis Hamilton

The World Championship leader said afterwards,  “I don’t think it’s a miracle result, it’s a reflection of all the hard work the team put in. The car was nice to drive. It wasn’t as quick as these guys, but we did the best job with the package we had.”

He added, “The Red Bulls are just so fast. I knew I wouldn’t be able to outpace them. I tried hard in the first few laps, I was flat chat, but he just kept on creeping away.”

Third place went to Nico Rosberg in Mercedes GP his third podium of the season and for his team a welcome back to competitiveness that has eluded them for some time.

Nico Rosberg managed to keep Jenson Button at bay to finish third

Biggest winner of all in terms of turning a bad qualifying into a good result was again Jenson Button whose fourth place in the McLaren Mercedes made amends for a poor qualifying. The Briton as usual made use of strategy to good effect and score a result that McLaren will be savouring.

Rubens Barrichello scored his highest finish of the season so far for Williams when he powered to fifth place, using his vast experience to out gun the mightier teams.

Completing another sensational race was Kamui Kobayashi, the hero of Valencia, went one better at Silverstone. Battling the big team drivers to score a remarkable sixth place for Sauber.

Sebastian Vettel limps back to the pits with a puncture on the first lap

Vettel was next in seventh ahead of a trio of Germans headed by Adrian Sutil (Force India) in eighth, Michael Schumacher (Mercedes GP) ninth and Nico Hulkenberg (Williams) tenth.

Having another weekend of misery were Ferrari. The Maranello team were expected to be a major force at Silverstone and true to expectations Fernando Alonso started from third on the grid after a strong showing in qualifying.

However that’s as good as it got as the Spaniard got a very bad start after banging wheels with team mate Felipe Massa. Alonso recovered and tried to fight but when getting passed Robert Kubica (Renault) he was adjudged to have cut the corner and handed a drive through by the stewards who were this time assisted by former Ferrari driver Nigel Mansell. Alonso finished 14th despite suffering a puncture while battling with with Vitantonio Liuzzi.

Massa’s trials and tribulations were even worse as he suffered a right rear puncture on the opening lap after the incident with Alonso exiting Turn 1. Thereafter the Brazilian was playing catch up for the rest of the afternoon. He finished 15th behind his team mate.

Ferrari summed up their race as a difficult afternoon, “It was very disappointing for the team at the end of a weekend when it worked very hard and had got the cars onto third and seventh places on the grid. Alonso’s race was complicated by a drive-through penality, for a passing move which the Stewards deemed illegal, then a puncture meant he had to pit while fighting his way up from the back. As for Massa, he needed to change tyres on the opening lap, with a damaged right rear tyre and then had a spin.”

Race Results – 11 July 2010