Formula One: Red Bulls shine at Silverstone, McLarens still lead Championship
Mark Webber clinched his third grand prix victory of the season at Silverstone after an inch perfect drive. Webber started second on the grid behind teammate Vettel and instantly challenged him at the start of the race. Vettel was forced to run wide at the first corner and picked up a rear puncture as a result of the incident.
Mark Webber ran away from the rest with unmatched pace and never gave Lewis Hamilton any opportunity to challenge him throughout the 52-lap race. Lewis Hamilton made a good start to gain a position on Alonso and the mistake by Vettel put him right behind Mark Webber.
Alonso, who started third on the gird, made a below average start and instantly fell to 6th position where he made contact with this teammate Massa and the Brazilian picked up a puncture as a result. Both Massa and Vettel were forced into pit stops and joined at the back of the pack.
Nico Rosberg also gained two positions and finished on the podium. Robert Kubica who started the race in 6th position jumped to third in the opening laps and held everyone behind as Webber and Hamilton opened up an 18-second lead at the front. Barichello started 8th on the grid and all he had to do to finish 5th was not make any mistakes. Pedro de la Rosa’s race was cut short and he had to retire at the midway point. Michael Schumacher, who started in P10, didn’t do much and had to contend with 9th position. Sutil, Kobayashi and Hulkenberg all improved on their initial positions to finish into points.
Jenson Button gained the most from the race after starting 14th on the grid. Button gained 6 track positions after the first lap and helped by Alonso’s penalty and an ideal pit strategy, Button finished the race in an impressive 4th position.
Jarno Trulli turned to be the fastest amongst new comers and finished ahead of Kovalainen, Chandhok, Glock and Yamamoto. 20 cars finished the race as Alguersuari, Kubica, de la Rosa and di Grassi all retired.
Red Bull, with an ideal position at the start, made a mess of another opportunity to surpass McLaren in the championship. The Austrian team continued to make mistakes and while Webber predicted a crash between Hamilton and Button, it was his teammate who suffered as a result of their battle for the race lead. Vettel who once found himself at P24, 54 seconds behind the car in front and lapped by his teammate fought very well on his way up to finish in 7th position. But the German will not be pleased at all considering he would have won the race with less than half the effort.
The McLarens were not expected to perform well especially after their qualifying performance. Before the race Hamilton said that qualifying in 4th was his best ever lap in Formula One and considering the fact that his teammate’s best performance was good only for 14th position on the grid, we couldn’t agree more with Hamilton. McLaren’s cause was helped by yet another consistent performance by both the drivers as the English team leads the championship by 29 points.
Red Bull, despite the victory could only take one point off McLaren’s lead and their drivers’ championship too is not helped by the fact that both Vettel and Webber take turns to ruin their races.
After their performances in practices and qualifying, Ferrari looked good to challenge the Red Bulls in the race. But after finishing 14th and 15th they have only themselves to blame. At the end of the race, both Alonso and Massa traded the fastest laps of the race and yet finished without adding to their points, only to see the championship lead increase to 113 points.
Fernando Alonso, on an attempt to overtake Kubcia for 4th position cut the corner and despite having gained an unfair advantage never gave the position back to the Pole. Kubica soon retired from the race but Alonso was handed a drive through penalty. As if this wasn’t already bad enough for the Spaniard, things became worse when a safety car was deployed right away to clear the debris on the start-finish straight. After Alonso served his penalty, he emerged in 19th position – the last man on track. Alonso managed to overtake a few drivers and gained 11th position before a forced pit stop put him back on 14th.
Those who believed that Schumacher has still much to offer might want to rethink their comments as the German posed no threat to any of the cars in front of him and finished with 2 points while his teammate Rosberg earned a podium.
Kobayashi who turned out to be the surprise package in Valencia with his 7th place finish, improved further to gain 6th in Silverstone. Force India, too, continued their run of scoring points as Sutil managed a very impressive 8th position.
While it seemed after the qualifying that the claims of some of the teams will come true the race proved to be a heart breaker for them. Ferrari despite their technical improvements continued to perform badly. Renault who was claiming to have caught up to Ferraris and McLarens were off the pace and finished without points and Schumacher who believed that fate would take a turn in Silverstone, continued to disappoint.
McLaren however, after all their troubles with the upgrades, gave another strong result and brought cheers to the home crowd that had already given up hopes of a podium after the qualifying on Saturday.
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