Fernando Alonso took the chequered flag with a charging drive in the Ferrari to score his twenty-seventh career Grand Prix victory at Silverstone.
By taking the win at the British Grand Prix, it reveals the Scuderia are back to challenge the likes of Red Bull Racing and McLaren Mercedes for top honours this season.
Championship leader Sebastian Vettel was able to fend off team-mate Mark Webber to take second – even though the use of team orders issued by Christian Horner prevented the Australian to overtake the German in the final few laps.
As for the duel for fourth, Lewis Hamilton just managed to hold onto the position with a last lap, final corner move from Felipe Massa. The McLaren and Ferrari actually made contact into Club but Hamilton kept his line and forced his rival off track to keep the spot.
The race had got underway in half-wet/half-dry conditions, with the area around the original start/finish area sodden but the new grid relatively dry by comparison.
Vettel got the jump on pole man Webber off the start, and charged into a comfortable early lead, while the Australian kept Alonso at bay in third.
Hamilton provided most of the initial action, making very rapid progress from his disappointing tenth on the grid to attack Felipe Massa’s Ferrari for fourth within a handful of laps.
Michael Schumacher triggered the move to slicks tyres somewhat accidentally when he slithered into Kamui Kobayashi’s Sauber on lap 10 and had to pit for a new front wing and tyres on his Mercedes.
The German’s immediate burst of pace convinced everyone else to come in, with Webber, Alonso and Hamilton choosing lap 12 while Vettel and Massa stayed out until the following lap.
Earlier proved slightly the better option, as by the time everyone was back up to speed on slicks, Vettel’s lead over Webber was down to 3.3 seconds, and rapidly getting smaller, although once the Red Bulls were within 1.5 seconds Vettel managed to raise his pace and keep his team-mate under control.
Alonso initially struggled to get temperature into his Pirellis and not only fell away from the Red Bulls, but lost third to a charging Hamilton into Copse.
But once the car and tyres were working in harmony again, Alonso started to fly. He used the Drag Reduction System to sweep past Hamilton into Brooklands on lap 23, and both then started hunting down the Red Bulls.
They got close enough that when both Vettel and Webber had slow pit-stops on laps 26 and 27, they fell to third and fourth behind new leader Alonso and Hamilton.
Now in clear air, Alonso began to look unstoppable – charging away from Hamilton at a rate of a second per lap as the McLaren had to start focusing on holding off the Red Bulls.
He succeeded until the final pit-stops, when Vettel stopped a lap sooner and jumped ahead. But even with the McLaren out of his way, Vettel could not catch the now dominant Alonso, who was long gone and heading for his first win since the Korean Grand Prix last year.
With his McLaren team instructing him to save fuel, Hamilton backed off and lost third to Webber, who then caught Vettel and mounted a huge late effort to overtake his team-mate until ordered to ‘maintain the gap’ on the final lap.
The slowing Hamilton had Massa all over him going into the closing moments, but retained fourth in a wild, wheel-banging battle through the last corners of the race.
Button ran fifth until the final pit-stops, when he was sent out with his right front wheel not properly attached and had to retire in the pit exit. His miserable bad luck on home ground continues with twelve appearance at the British Grand Prix not resulting in a podium finish.
Nico Rosberg made a two-stop strategy work to take sixth for Mercedes GP, just ahead of Sergio Perez’s Sauber. Nick Heidfeld salvaged eighth from Renault’s difficult weekend, with Michael Schumacher recovering well to take ninth, followed by Toro Rosso’s Jaime Alguersuari, Adrian Sutil’s Force India and Vitaly Petrov in the other Renault.
Paul di Resta’s brilliant qualifying effort was wasted when a pit-stop miscommunication badly delayed the Force India. He later needed a new front wing after clashing with Sebastien Buemi in an incident that forced the Toro Rosso to retire due to damage from a resultant puncture.
Fernando Alonso’s victory at Silverstone means he is now 92 points behind series leader Sebastian Vettel, while Red Bull Racing increase their points lead in the constructors’ championship.
British Grand Prix, Silverstone. 52 laps:
1. Alonso Ferrari 1h28:41.194
2. Vettel Red Bull-Renault +16.511
3. Webber Red Bull-Renault +16.947
4. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes +28.986
5. Massa Ferrari +29.010
6. Rosberg Mercedes +1:00.665
7. Perez Sauber-Ferrari +1:05.590
8. Heidfeld Renault +1:15.542
9. Schumacher Mercedes +1:17.912
10. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari +1:19.108
11. Sutil Force India-Mercedes +1:19.712
12. Petrov Renault +1:20.600
13. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth +1 lap
14. Maldonado Williams-Cosworth +1 lap
15. Di Resta Force India-Mercedes +1 lap
16. Glock Virgin-Cosworth +2 laps
17. D’Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth +2 laps
18. Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth +2 laps
19. Ricciardo HRT-Cosworth +3 laps
Fastest lap: Alonso, 1:34.908
Not classified/retirements:
Button McLaren-Mercedes 41 laps
Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 26 laps
Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 24 laps
Trulli Lotus-Renault 11 laps
Kovalainen Lotus-Renault 3 laps
World Championship standings, round 9:
Drivers:
1. Vettel 204
2. Webber 124
3. Alonso 112
4. Hamilton 109
5. Button 109
6. Massa 52
7. Rosberg 40
8. Heidfeld 34
9. Petrov 31
10. Schumacher 28
11. Kobayashi 25
12. Sutil 10
13. Alguersuari 9
14. Buemi 8
15. Perez 8
16. Barrichello 4
17. Di Resta 2
Constructors:
1. Red Bull-Renault 328
2. McLaren-Mercedes 218
3. Ferrari 164
4. Mercedes 68
5. Renault 65
6. Sauber-Ferrari 33
7. Toro Rosso-Ferrari 17
8. Force India-Mercedes 12
9. Williams-Cosworth 4
Next race: German Grand Prix, Nürburgring. July 22-24.
By taking the chequered flag at Silverstone, Fernando Alonso has commented that this win boosted Ferrari. Autosport.com has the details.
Fernando Alonso says his victory in the British Grand Prix is a huge boost for Ferrari after a difficult first part of the season.
The Italian squad had not won any races since the Korean Grand Prix last year, but Alonso took an emphatic victory at Silverstone to put an end to the Maranello squad’s drought.
Alonso admitted winning at a circuit that did not suit Ferrari particularly well was also a bonus.
“Obviously it is a huge boost for us,” said Alonso. “We were confident of being quick here at Silverstone.
“No doubts it was a race that had one red cross because it was not an easy grand prix for us; the characteristics of the corners, and the layout were never our strongest points.
“We knew that Silverstone, like Barcelona, was difficult for us, so winning here is a good motivation for everyone and gives us confidence approaching the next few races.”
The Spanish driver insisted Ferrari will just enjoy the victory without thinking about the championship, as he is aware than his gap to Sebastian Vettel – 92 points – is huge.
“We will try to enjoy the moment, the win and work hard. We will have the same approach as we had in Malaysia and we had in Canada and here as well. It is a weekend to try to go for the victory, to try to go for the race.
“There are not championship thoughts at the moment because the gap is massive to Seb. We need to enjoy every weekend, and there is no time to think about anything.”
In the battle for second position, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner told Mark Webber to ‘maintain the gap’ meaning don’t even overtake Sebastian Vettel. But the Australian has admitted he ignored the team orders and wasn’t particular please to hold station behind the championship leader. Autosport.com has the story.
Mark Webber says he is ‘not fine’ with Red Bull’s request that he hold position behind team-mate Sebastian Vettel in the closing stages of the British Grand Prix and ignored the instruction.
Webber caught Vettel in the final laps and mounted several overtaking attempts without success.
The Australian said he had received “probably four or five” messages from the team asking him not to attack Vettel, but declined to follow them.
Asked how he felt about the team orders, Webber replied: “I am not fine with it, no. That is the answer to that.
“If Fernando [Alonso] retires on the last lap, we are fighting for the win.
“Of course I ignored the team because I wanted to try and get a place. Seb was doing his best, I was doing my best. I wasn’t going to crash with anyone.
“I try to do my best with the amount of one way conversation I was having – I was trying to do my best to pass the guy in front.”
Last year at Silverstone, Webber famously quipped “not bad for a number two” over the radio after winning the race in the wake of the qualifying day favouritism row, which erupted when Red Bull took the latest front wing off Webber’s car to put on Vettel’s after the German’s example had failed in practice.
Asked if he felt ‘like a number two’ again, Webber said: “Not really. I just want to race until the end. Four or five laps to go, they started to chat to me about holding my position. I wanted the points but I also wanted to get some more points as well.”
Vettel said he could understand why the team wanted them to avoid racing each other, but also that he was happy to battle.
“I try to stay ahead, nothing wrong with that,” he said. “If you have the cars quite isolated in second and third, with the first guy away and the fourth guy pretty far away, from the team’s point of view there is no point racing and doing something stupid.
“The difference between second and third is not massive but we naturally try to race. I tried to hold position. I was struggling, Mark was faster and then there was the chequered flag.”
Vettel added that he could not understand why a furore was developing over the issue in the press conference.
“I finished second…” he responded when asked if the result was a ‘sham’.
“As I said earlier, Mark tried to pass me, I could stay ahead. Clearly you could see he is quicker. If I would not be racing then I would just wave him past, so surely the last thing you want is to do something bad to the team?
“If it was the other way around, there is no point – of course I would like to overtake Mark at that stage, so no point trying to do something stupid. I don’t see why there is such a fuss.
“I think we were racing. It was not a scheduled ‘I move right, he moves right, I brake here, he brakes there…’ He tried to race me as hard as he could, he didn’t find a way past.
“To me at this stage it is quite amusing.”
Championship leader Sebastian Vettel has commented that the Ferrari and Fernando Alonso combo was the quickest to take the overall victory at Silverstone. Autosport.com has the story.
Sebastian Vettel said Ferrari defeated Red Bull fair and square in the British Grand Prix.
Although the championship leader admitted that Red Bull’s slow second pitstop – which cost him the lead to Fernando Alonso on the track – had definitely hurt his chances, he admitted that Ferrari had been quicker in the end.
“I think it is hard to say how much we lost [in the pits], but we lost the lead and he had quite a bit of a cushion at that stage, so it didn’t help,” said Vettel.
“I came out behind Fernando and Lewis [Hamilton]. I struggled to get past. I had some places where it was quite close with him but it didn’t quite work, and had a long stint at the end, but all in all it was a very good race.
“All in all mistakes here or there, but you cannot get it right all the time and I accept fair and square Ferrari beat us today.
“Not only this race, there has been a trend the last couple of races. They have been good in race pace and improving their car.
“It shows we need to keep working and keep pushing very hard and hopefully soon we’ll get there again.”
He said the pit issue had been that the left rear was not properly fastened at first.
“I think everything went initially according to plan,” Vettel said. “It went on but I think it wasn’t tight, we put the car down, back on the floor, when I saw in mirror and realised it was not done yet then they put car back up, lost a lot of time and lost position to Fernando in pit box and Lewis on the circuit.”
As for Lewis Hamilton, he thought it was frustrating to save fuel following a ‘crazy’ race at Silverstone. Autosport.com has the details.
Lewis Hamilton labeled the end of his British Grand Prix as ‘crazy’ after beating Felipe Massa by less than a tenth of a second.
The McLaren driver finished in fourth position after having to save fuel during the latter part of the race.
Massa caught up with Hamilton on the final lap, and the duo went side by side at the exit of the final corner, making contact before Massa went off track and crossed the finish line 0.024 seconds behind his rival.
“That’s as close as it is going to get. It was crazy,” said Hamilton. “First of all the team did a fantastic job with all the pitstops and really today, coming here knowing the support we had – I’ve never known so many people here at Silverstone.
“The support we have here is far beyond any driver will get anywhere else, I believe. Massively thankful for that. So I could feel them spurring me on and I had a good start, made some places up.
“Unfortunately at the end, with 21 laps to the end or something, I had to save fuel. Massively. So I had to give Webber the position and then the last lap they said ‘okay, now you can push’ and I was like ‘oh, thanks’ after I’ve let him [Massa] catch me up. But I was not giving him that position, no way.”
Hamilton admitted he was frustrated to have to save fuel during the race, as he was running ahead of Mark Webber, who finished on the podium.
“Yeah, because you are always trying to drive to the fine line and of course I can think of the guys in front, Ferraris and Red Bulls, they didn’t look like they had to save fuel so that’s not a positive on our side.
“They tell me go to this delta, but I want to make sure I’m always there and not too much or too little, I don’t want to save too much fuel and make sure I can still keep my position.”
The Briton also joked that he expected to be called by the stewards following his record in the last few races.
“I’ve got like a platinum card for the stewards, so I expect to be there! I’m actually going straight from here to the stewards – just sit there and wait – rather than go back and come back.”
Team-mate Jenson Button endured another disappointing British GP after being forced to retire when his right front tyre was not attached properly following a pitstop.
“As I turned up the hill, the wheel came off,” Button said. “I stopped immediately. Very disappointing. We all make mistakes, we all hope they never happen.
“Disappointing also because it was in front of the home crowd – good couple of battles out there and the pace was very good before my stop. It was all looking pretty sweet and I think I would have come out alongside Mark [Webber], if not ahead of Mark, when I made my pitstop.
“So much could have happened and there’s always the possibility of a podium when you are that far up and the pace is good.”
Jaime Alguersuari said his car’s lack of top speed cost him at least two places at the British Grand Prix on Sunday.
The Toro Rosso driver finished in 10th position after another strong charge from 18th on the grid.
Alguersuari was adamant, however, that he was a second quicker than Nick Heidfeld and Michael Schumacher, but could not overtake them because of the lack of speed on the straights.
“I was definitely faster than Heidfeld and Schumacher, around most of the lap, as was the case in Valencia,” Alguersuari said.
“But we could not make the most of this as I then lost out to them going down the straight. I’m not sure why that was the case, maybe we ran with a bit more downforce than them.
“However, I am happy for the team, who I thank for doing a good job, as getting back into the points from eighteenth on the grid was a good result after we failed to make the most of the Soft tyre in qualifying.”
Team-mate Sebastien Buemi was forced to retire from the race after suffering a puncture following contact with with Paul di Resta.
“I’m a bit disappointed as I feel we could have picked up some points today,” he said. “I was running at a good pace. I would like to see the footage with Di Resta again to see exactly what happened, but from the cockpit, I was on the dry line, he tried to come up the inside of me where the track surface was still very wet.
“So he could not brake as hard as if he had been on the dry and I felt an impact. He had touched my left rear tyre which shredded it. But that’s racing, so it’s best to forget it and start thinking about the next race at the Nurburgring.”
Source: Autosport.com
For Williams, the lack of pace in the wet cost the drivers a good result at the British Grand Prix. Autosport.com has the story.
Williams felt it was quick enough in the dry to get a good result in the British Grand Prix, but felt it lost too much time in the wet part of the race to recover into the points.
Rubens Barrichello and Pastor Maldonado finished only 13th and 14th, despite the latter qualifying seventh.
“It was quite difficult for us today especially with the light rain shortly before the start,” said Maldonado. “Our car set-up was geared towards a dry race so we were compromised from the outset. Towards the end, our performance was better but by that stage it was too late. Unfortunately it wasn’t the best weekend for us.”
Barrichello lost several positions at the start and agreed that the car had been a handful in the wet.
“We didn’t have the best of starts and fell back quite a bit,” he said. “Strangely, the car didn’t feel good in the wet and it was a struggle to keep it on the track. It was also difficult to keep up with the guys in front of us. We had hoped for a better result at our home grand prix.”
Technical director Sam Michael was confident that Williams would have been quick enough in a totally dry race.
“Our pace on the intermediate tyre wasn’t good enough today,” he said. “Compared to some of the guys in the top 10, our lap times on the dry tyre were respectable, but we just lost too much time in the opening laps to be able to make up any ground. We ran different strategies on the two cars to attempt to do something different to recover but it wasn’t meant to be today.”
Michael Schumacher was unhappy about his mistake during the British GP, something he reckons cost him a possible fourth-place finish.
Schumacher made contact with Kamui Kobayashi early in the race after overshooting a corner, damaging his front wing and also receiving a drive-through penalty.
Despite that, Schumacher put on a solid performance to finish in the points in ninth position.
The Mercedes driver admitted the accident was his fault, and was sorry he could not give his team a better result.
“My result today is a bit of a shame, and of course I am not happy about it,” said Schumacher. “I think fifth or even fourth place would not have been out of question today thanks to the superb job the guys back in Brackley and Brixworth have done.
“I would so much have wished to bring them some decent points this evening when we go back to the factory for a BBQ with their families. But unfortunately, and due to my fault, I cannot.
“Having used DRS for the first time in the race, I was arriving at the corner with over-run. Underestimating the effect, my braking was not good and this is how the collision happened.
“It was right to get a penalty but why it had to be a stop-go, and not a drive-through penalty, I would like to understand better as I felt it was too hard. Anyway, the good thing is that step-by-step, the hard work of our team is paying off more and more, and this is a good feeling heading towards our next home race.”
Nico Rosberg finished in sixth position after a solid day for Mercedes, the German hoping his team can continue moving forward.
“I’m pretty pleased with our result this weekend,” said Rosberg. “First of all because in qualifying we had the potential to be in the top five, and secondly we had a really good strategy in the race. My start was not good, so being able to eventually finish in sixth place is a nice result for us.
“And hopefully it’s the start of an upward trend, before our next home race in Germany, so I’m looking forward to confirming our performance at the Nurburgring. In the next few days, we will analyse the whole weekend with our new developments on the car, and will work hard on improving it even further.”
Source: Autosport.com
Despite winning the British Grand Prix, Ferrari hopes the row over the use of the exhaust/diffusers will be sorted following an intense weekend of Formula One politics. Autosport.com has the details.
Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali is optimistic that a settlement will be achieved in the row over off-throttle exhaust blowing that has dominated the British Grand Prix weekend.
The Italian team and Sauber – which uses Ferrari engines – were the only two outfits which refused to agree to the FIA’s offer to return to the pre-Silverstone rules situation when it was discussed in a meeting this morning.
After a weekend of arguments over the rules clampdown and associated concessions, the governing body had said it would allow the rules to revert to the Valencia specification, when off-throttle blowing was permitted but extreme engine maps banned, if all the teams agreed. But Ferrari and Sauber’s position prevented this, leaving the situation uncertain.
But Domenicali said after the British GP that he thinks it “likely” that unanimity will be reached.
The latest on the off-throttle exhaust row as reported by Autosport.com.
Formula 1’s row over the off-throttle use of blown diffusers is now at an end, after Ferrari and Sauber agreed to join other teams in backing plans to ditch the ban on the concept.
Although at a Sunday morning meeting the two outfits were alone in failing to support the offer from the FIA to revert engine mapping settings to how they were in Valencia, the two have now indicated that they will support the move.
Once the official agreement from all 12 teams is in place, it is understood that it will be a formality for the FIA to approve teams using off-throttle blown diffusers from the German Grand Prix – although the ban on outfits changing engine mapping settings between qualifying and the race will stand.
When asked about comments from Bernie Ecclestone that all teams had now agreed, Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali said: “That is my understanding too…
“I think that this thing was not really good for everyone. We need to draw a line and now look ahead, because otherwise where we are going? Even if I think I don’t agree with the process, for the benefit of the sport we should have action.”
Domenicali did use the opportunity, however, to take a swipe at the way other teams had tried to use the blown diffuser controversy to their advantage.
“To be honest, when you think of the bigger picture you think of a wider opening. I have to say that I don’t think all the people are behaving like we are.”
Sauber boss Peter Sauber refused to confirm whether his team had signed the agreement to revert back to the Valencia regulations, but said Ecclestone was not incorrect in stating all teams had agreed.
“When Bernie tells that, normally it is true what he says,” he said. “The whole thing is a shame. The whole thing….it started after the race in Montreal and finished I don’t know when. I don’t want to speak about it.
“The FIA after Montreal said that this system is illegal and we will change it. And then we have a lot of discussion about the engine and all this rubbish. Everybody looked for himself. That is normal.”
Making his first Grand Prix appearance in Hispania, Daniel Ricciardo was quite pleased to have finished 52 laps of the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. Autosport.com has the full story on his debut.
Daniel Ricciardo declared himself pleased to have made it to the end of his first Formula 1 race at Silverstone on Sunday.
The Hispania driver, making his grand prix debut this weekend, finished down in 19th and last place, but felt the experienced of completing a full race will help him be stronger in the next one.
“I feel quite good to finish and see the checkered flag,” said the Australian. “It was nice to get the laps, which I think was the most important thing for me today for experience.
“Understanding the tyres, the pitstops and the strategy, it’s really very complex and something I’ve never really done before, so in this respect I think it was a step forward.
“I was quite a bit off the other competitors but I think that, as I learn, I will get a bit closer. I also need to try and manage the blue flags a bit better, it’s not easy. At the end, looking at it now, I’m quite pleased with the result.
“My expectations for the next race are to learn and move forward, to be a bit closer to Tonio in qualifying and to try and close the gap in the race, I think that is a good target for now.”
Felipe Massa says he has no complaints about his battle with Lewis Hamilton on the final lap of the British Grand Prix.
The pair banged wheels through the last corners as they fought for fourth place, Massa having caught the slowing McLaren as Hamilton conserved fuel. After several brushes between them, Hamilton crossed the line in front as Massa went wide over the run-off through Club.
But the Brazilian was relaxed about their dice despite the contact.
“Well there is nothing really to say,” he said. “I was close to Lewis going into the last corner. He went to the inside, I went outside, I went to brake after him and I was able to turn a little bit in front of him and he touched me a little bit, but I don’t think it was anything really wrong, in my opinion.
“And then in the last corner I was completely running wide and I had to do an alteration and he was able to put the car inside. He had the better grip and he was able to finish, I don’t know the difference, but only just in front.”
Asked if he had enjoyed the battle, Massa replied: “Well no because I finished behind him but for you guys I think it was nice. But you always want to finish at the front.”
Massa added that he had been encouraged to see his team-mate Fernando Alonso win today with a commanding performance that saw him come through from fourth place to dominate the second half of the event.
“I hope we are better in the second part of the season and we are more competitive, especially compared with Red Bull,” said Massa. “This race the qualifying was very close and in the race Fernando was better than them. I couldn’t be but it was good for the team and I hope we carry on like that and be fighting with [Red Bull] from now until the end.”
Source: Autosport.com
After finishing in the points, Sauber’s Sergio Perez is pretty sure that the team’s performance will get stronger following this Silverstone result. Autosport.com has the story.
Sergio Perez is adamant he will be even stronger in the German Grand Prix after scoring his first points since his Monaco crash at Silverstone.
The Mexican was forced to miss two races because of his heavy accident in Monte Carlo and he admitted he had lost some momentum following an impressive start to the season.
On Sunday, however, the Sauber rookie put on a strong performance to finish in seventh place, and he is confident he is now back in full form.
“I think it was a good race and a very good result for the team,” said Perez. “In the beginning the conditions were quite difficult, but we managed to stay out of trouble. The strategy was good and my pitstops were perfect.
“Unfortunately I couldn’t overtake Nico (Rosberg). I was very close but he was too fast on the straights. Overall I am happy and now the difficult times are behind me.
“After the accident it took me time to get back into the rhythm of the season, and find the momentum I had before it. In two weeks’ time I shall be even stronger.”
Sauber team-mate Kamui Kobayashi was forced to retire from the race due to an oil leak, but not before a crash with Michael Schumacher and a penalty for an unsafe pitstop release.
“It is a real shame because our overall performance was good this weekend,” he said. “In today’s race I was very unlucky. I think there is not a lot for me to say about the accident with Michael (Schumacher). We were not side by side, and he obviously hit the rear of my car. From then on I had to drive with a damaged car.
“Then I had bad luck with the pitstop, was given the stop and go penalty, and finally had to stop because I was told on the radio there was an oil leak and I should pull off the track.”
Taking part in his first British Grand Prix, Paul di Resta will learn from his experience despite racing incidents. Autosport.com has the details.
Paul di Resta says he will still take great encouragement from his British Grand Prix even though his race went awry after a superb qualifying result.
The Scot had started sixth for Force India and was running comfortably in seventh when he had a disastrous pitstop following some miscommunication – the team having expected his team-mate Adrian Sutil, who had just reported a puncture, to arrive first.
That delay and a later stop for a new front wing after tangling with Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi left di Resta only 15th at the flag.
But he said the pace he had displayed all weekend meant he could still leave Silverstone satisfied.
“I’ll just continue on and try to do what we’ve been doing and hopefully our luck will turn,” said di Resta.
“We are seeing improvements with the car. In Germany, we’ve got some updates coming so we’re feeling very positive and hopefully they’ll work. As a team, we’re learning from the mistakes we’ve made.”
He underlined that his Saturday result had been well-earned.
“It wasn’t a fluke lap. We got into Q3 on performance and we did a good job in Q3,” he said. “As long as we can build on that and do it again at the Nurburgring, it will be satisfying.”
Di Resta admitted that hanging on to a top six place in the grand prix had always been unlikely, but was still certain points were on the cards.
“It probably wasn’t quite as strong as our qualifying performance,” he said of his race pace. “We kind of had an idea it would be like that.
“But we were still in a strong position. We were 13 seconds up the road from a Renault that scored points and I’m sure we could have continued like that.”
The McLaren and Sauber teams have been fined for the unsafe releases of Jenson Button and Kamui Kobayashi during pitstops in the British Grand Prix.
Button’s team was given a €5,000 fine, while Sauber will have to pay €20,000 added to Kobayashi receiving a drive-through penalty for his unsafe release during the race.
The Japanese driver was released in front of Rubens Barrichello and damaged one of Force India’s air hoses in the process.
Button retired from the event after his front right tyre was not attached properly to his car.
Source: Autosport.com
With Mark Webber told on the team radio to ‘maintain the gap’ questions were asked to Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner on why he had to tell the Australian not to race with championship leader Sebastian Vettel. Autosport.com provides the story.
Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner plans to sit down with Mark Webber behind closed doors to discuss his actions at the British Grand Prix, after expressing ‘surprise’ that the Australian ignored team orders at the end of the race.
Webber confessed that he had deliberately ignored instructions from the pit wall to hold his position behind Vettel in the closing stages of the race – because he was keen to keep racing his team-mate for second place until the chequered flag.
Horner said he did not expect Webber to have acted in such a way – and made it clear that he was unhappy the Australian had risked costing the team valuable points.
When asked by AUTOSPORT if he was surprised that Webber had ignored orders, Horner said: “Yes. At the end of the day the team is the biggest thing, and no individual is bigger than the team.
“I can understand Mark’s frustration in that, but had it been the other way around it would have been exactly the same.
“It happened a couple of years ago in Turkey when exactly the same thing happened with Sebastian, so it makes no sense from a team point of view to risk both of your cars. It was obvious that neither was going to concede.
“And, as we saw with [Felipe] Massa and [Lewis] Hamilton at the last corner, who very nearly made contact, it made no sense from a team point of view to allow them to continue to fight over those last couple of laps.
“Mark obviously chose to ignore that and didn’t make the pass in any event, but that is the team’s position.”
Speaking about how he will respond to Webber’s actions, Horner said: “It is something that he and I will talk about in private.”
Horner said the team decided for its drivers to hold position around four laps from the end of the race – and that it was based purely on the team avoiding the possibility of seeing its drivers collide near the end of the event while in a strong position.
And rather than being a statement that Webber is playing a supporting role to Vettel from now on, Horner emphasised that the team would continue to give both drivers the chance to battle for victory.
“He is free to fight for race wins. He qualified on pole position here. He had the ability, the opportunity to win this race. It didn’t pan out for him today but we will continue to give him every chance to do so.
“From a team perspective, I made it quite clear in the drivers’ briefing this morning in front of the engineers, that the biggest thing today was about getting a team result in front of all of the staff who put in so much effort into both of those cars, for the Constructors’ Championship and the drivers’ championship.
“Now both drivers have come away with Sebastian having extended his lead in the world championship, Mark having moved into second in the world championship and the team having increased its lead in the Constructors’ Championship.”
He added: “At the end of the day, the team championship is every bit as important as the drivers’ championship to us. And we risked giving away 33 points today in the last three laps by allowing our drivers to fight it out.
“As we have seen previously, that can have dire consequences. We said okay, we have allowed them to race up until that point and, with three laps to go, rather than risk both of them being in the fence, it was the right decision.
“As a team it was absolutely the right decision. As we see in other sports, sometimes substitutions are made. But, from a team point of view, we were not going to risk the 33 points. Both drivers are now first and second in the drivers’ championship and we are going to do nothing to jeopardise that.”
What was that at the end? Is there a rule in the books that says it’s alright to have avoidable collisions that go unpunished if you’re name is Hamilton? Mclaren back to their old tricks maybe? Nudge-Nudge, Wink-Wink…
Janus
As Nigel Mansell said in the BBC Red Button Forum – representing the FIA race stewards – that incident on the final lap between Hamilton and Massa was a racing incident. So no punishment issued to either drivers. The Brazilian even said he had no complaints and it was racing.
The big stories during the British Grand Prix weekend is the off-throttle exhaust row and the team orders at Red Bull Racing. The former is just too technical and to be honest, not that interesting to talk about but at least it has been resolved after constant war of words between the teams. As for the latter, was it right for Christian Horner to tell Mark Webber to ‘maintain the gap’ over Sebastian Vettel? Well, check out the contrasting opinions on F1 Fanatic for an answer.
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2011/07/10/webber-red-bulls-order-pass-vettel/
If my opinion, I would love to see a racing battle even though their were team-mates. But the most important rule is never to take out your team-mate. Case in point, Turkey 2009 in which Vettel crashed into Webber. Okay, Webber ignored the team orders as he is a racer and that must be applauded, but in the end this is a team’s sport. So you have to consider the bigger picture which is scoring championship points as a team. A shame as I prefer the drivers fighting out but you don’t want to place risk of losing precious points.
I wonder if Mansell’s opinion would be the same if it had been Massa crashing into Hamilton? The thing I don’t like about F1 is that they always seem so accommodating to the home fans. Ferrari will always get the favours in Italy, same with Mercedes in Germany and McLaren in Britain.
Janus