British Grand Prix 2011 – Race Report

Fernando Alonso took his first win of the season thanks to a sensational performance during an action-packed British Grand Prix at Silverstone. After Sebastian Vettel lost the lead because of a fumbled pit-stop, the Ferrari number one never looked back as he romped to the chequered flag. Vettel held on to second from teammate Mark Webber, with Lewis Hamilton taking a strong fourth place in front of his adoring home fans after a difficult qualifying session.

During a rain-affected qualifying session, Webber took his second pole position of the season ahead of Vettel and the Ferrari duo of Alonso and Felipe Massa. The McLarens struggled for pace as Jenson Button and Hamilton lined up in fifth and tenth places respectively, the latter being caught out by a late shower having set his only time on worn tyres. There were however three British drivers in the top ten as Paul Di Resta managed a career-best sixth place on the grid, ahead of Pastor Maldonado and Kamui Kobayashi.

The drivers all opted to begin the race on intermediate tyres as the area near the newly-positioned start was dry, whilst the other end of the track was still wet. At the field got underway, Vettel seized the initiative with a faultless start and passed Webber, who was able to keep hold of second place from Alonso. Button managed to relieve Massa of fourth position, whilst Hamilton also made several positions from his starting position, ending the first lap in sixth place after overtaking Di Resta as the pack headed into Stowe corner for the first time. The following lap, the charging Briton was able to dispense with his teammate into Brooklands after he fell back behind Massa a couple of corners earlier at The Loop.

With the McLaren performing well in the damp conditions, Hamilton quickly cruised up to the back of Massa's Ferrari, but was forced to wait until the first round of pit-stops to make his way past the Brazilian after two adventures into the tarmac run-off area at Brooklands corner. With the track drying up all the time, Button was the first of the top six cars to take the gamble of slick tyres on lap 11; Webber, Alonso and Hamilton did so the following lap, and finally race-leader Vettel and Massa on lap 13. With the race officially declared wet, the drivers were not obliged to use the hard compound tyre, and as such everybody chose soft rubber for the remainder of the race.

Hamilton successfully 'undercut' Massa to take fourth position during the stops, and wasted no time in catching up to the other Ferrari of Alonso. The Spaniard was unable to keep his former teammate at bay as he went for a daring move up the inside of Copse, but Hamilton never quite looked like truly getting away from the man from whom he'd just taken the final podium place. Alonso persevered and was able to take third back from the McLaren driver at Brooklands on lap 22, and proceeded to set a blistering pace until his second pit-stop of the race, which came on lap 27.

This coincided with Vettel's second visit to the pits, but the stop was severely hindered by a problem with the rear jack which allowed Alonso to scoot past into the lead. The reigning champion lost a further position to Hamilton who had stopped three laps earlier, but Hamilton's pace was just not sufficient to keep up with Alonso, who began to stretch his new lead by 1.2 seconds per lap. This meant Vettel was almost immediately on the tail of Hamilton, but he decided to err on the side of caution and wait until the final round of pit-stops to take second place back from the home hero.

Indeed, Vettel also made use of the fashionable undercutting tactic on lap 36 to move back into second place, ahead of Hamilton who stopped one lap later. There was more woe for McLaren as Button pitted from fifth on lap 39 (having dispatched Massa with an excellent move round the outside of Stowe), only for his pit-crew to fail to properly secure his front-right tyre as he left his pit-box. Button pulled over at the end of the pit-lane as he saw that the wheel was clearly in danger of going AWOL, and that was the end of his race.
As Alonso continued to stretch his lead to over fifteen seconds ahead of Vettel, another piece of misfortune for McLaren had the effect of creating two thrilling battles in the closing stages of the race. That misfortune came in the form of the news that Hamilton would be forced to slow down in order to have sufficient fuel to finish the race. This meant Webber had no trouble in passing Hamilton for third, and with the Brit having to drastically curtail his pace, fifth-placed Massa began to close at a rate of over a second a lap. As the Brazilian caught his former championship rival, Webber also caught up to his teammate Vettel, who appeared to be struggling with tyre wear.

Team principal Christian Horner would've had Webber hold station, but the Australian was in no mood to accept team orders as he hounded Vettel for the last five or so laps, just missing out on second position after an excellent wheel-to-wheel battle. Massa also came within a whisker of taking fourth place away from Hamilton; the pair crossed the line side-by-side after some minor contact on the penultimate corner of the race, but ultimately Hamilton did just enough to hold on.

These duels only played into the hands of Alonso, who strolled to a comfortable 27^th career victory, placing him level with triple-champion Jackie Stewart in the all-time standings. Vettel continued his lengthy run of top-two finishes ahead of Webber, whose relationship with his Red Bull team may have just taken a fresh turn for the worse, Hamilton and Massa. Nico Rosberg made use of a two-stop strategy to finish in sixth place for Mercedes ahead of Sergio Perez who took his best-ever finish for Sauber in seventh. Nick Heidfeld did a solid job to take eighth place, ahead of countryman Michael Schumacher who endured an eventful afternoon.

First, the former champion made a great start from thirteenth on the grid to reach ninth by the end of the first lap, but then suffered a collision with Kamui Kobayashi's Sauber at Brooklands corner which meant, not for the first time this season, he was forced to pit for a new nose, making an early change to slick tyres simultaneously. He earned a ten-second stop/go penalty for his troubles, but set a strong pace thereafter and did well to recover to ninth, ahead of Jaime Alguersauri who also made up several positions for Toro Rosso en route to tenth place and the final point.

Force India's three-stop strategy for Adrian Sutil failed to pay dividends as he fell behind several of his rivals into eleventh place, ahead of Vitaly Petrov in the second Renault. After a promising grid slot of seventh, Pastor Maldonado simply didn't have point-scoring pace as he ended up behind Williams teammate Rubens Barrichello into fourteenth. He fared marginally better than fellow rookie Di Resta however, whose equally strong position was squandered by a motley combination of a slow pit-stop and contact with Sebastien Buemi that gave the Toro Rosso driver a puncture that put him out of the race. The Scot ended up a dejected fifteenth.

Timo Glock and Jerome D'Ambrosio for Virgin were next ahead of the Hispania drivers Vitantonio Liuzzi and Daniel Ricciardo, who saw the chequered flag on his F1 race debut in place of Narain Karthikeyan as a result of the a deal between the Hispania team and Red Bull, who sponsors the newcomer.  Both Lotus drivers bowed out early on with mechanical troubles, whilst Kobayashi retired with an oil leak soon after his collision with Schumacher.
Vettel still enjoys a huge lead in the drivers' standings of 80 points from Webber, with Alonso having moved past both McLarens into third place just twelve behind the second of the Red Bull drivers after a terrific win. The F1 circus visits the Nurburgring circuit in Germany next, where Vettel's rivals will doubtless be hoping to deny the championship leader a maiden home triumph. With the Ferrari team ostensibly back on form, it looks as if Alonso could be the best placed of them to manage it.