British Grand Prix: Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso beats Sebastian Vettel for first 2011 win – Formula 1
Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso has beaten defending champion Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull Racing to win the 2011 Formula 1 British Grand Prix at the Silverstone circuit.
Vettel’s teammate Mark Webber finished third on the podium while McLaren-Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton came fourth leaving Felipe Massa of Ferrari in fifth place.
Starting from third place on the starting grid, Alonso benefitted from a pit stop error from the Red Bull Racing team when Vettel came in the pit lane in the second half of the race. The Spaniard raced past Vettel to take the lead in the race and held it until the chequered flag. He finished the race 16.5 seconds ahead of Vettel who battled for his second place with teammate Webber who finished fraction of a second behind.
The 2011 Formula 1 British Grand Prix was an enthralling contest between the drivers and lived up to the hype built around it.
Every car on the grid started the race on intermediate tyres following the drizzle in the warm up lap. Sebastian Vettel stormed past his teammate Webber to take the lead of the race just before the first corner of the starting lap. Alonso was also not far behind in his Ferrari and kept challenging the two Red Bull drivers ahead of him. After 10 laps in the race, as the track dried down a bit, the cars switched to dry tyres which gave them better race grip.
Lewis Hamilton, who started the race from 10th place on the grid, managed a superb run in the opening laps of the race and climbed five places up right in the beginning, something that he might regret after he finished the race in the fourth place. Pushing too hard in the initial stages of the race left him running short on fuel towards the end from which Mark Webber of Red Bull benefitted the most and took the third position from him.
During the race, Jenson Button of McLaren-Mercedes had a disastrous pit stop when his right front tyre was not changed properly and he had to retire out of the race because of that.
Nico Rosberg of Mercedes GP finished in 6th place while his teammate Michael Schumacher did well to finish the race in 9th place after he had dropped to 17th at one point following a stop/go penalty for hitting Kamui Kobayashi’s car.
Sergio Perez of Sauber came 7th ahead of Nick Heidfeld of Renault in 8th place. Toro Rosso driver Jaime Alguersuari rounded off the top ten.
Sebastian Vettel still leads the drivers’ championship with 204 points, 80 ahead of his teammate Mark Webber in second place. As a result of winning the Silverstone Grand Prix, Fernando Alonso is now in third place with 112 points, still 92 points behind the leader.
The tenth round of the 2011 Formula 1 season, the German Grand Prix will take place in two weeks’ time on July 24.
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