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. 

British Grand Prix 2011 – Qualifying Report

Mark Webber took advantage of the confusion caused by changeable conditions and a hastily-imposed restriction on 'blown' diffusers to bag his second pole position of the year at the Silverstone Circuit. He leads an all-Red Bull front row as his teammate Sebastian Vettel lines up in second place after a time a few tenths of a second slower, while the two Ferraris of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa form the second row after a competitive showing.

Q1

With the sky looking rather overcast, just about everybody took the track on dry tyres before any rain materialised. Home hero Lewis Hamilton was one of the first to set a time, which was a 1'35.4 using the hard compound tyres. The two Ferraris of Alonso and Massa then proceeded to smash that time by the best part of two seconds, with even Vettel apparently unable to answer the sudden upsurge in the pace of the Prancing Horse after an initial effort a second slower. The championship leader didn't take long to amend the situation however, taking the top spot away from Alonso with a time a tenth quicker than the Spaniard, who incidentally took an unscheduled trip into the gravel at Luffield corner amidst his response. After equipping soft tyres, the Williams pairing of Rubens Barrichello and Pastor Maldonado both enjoyed brief spells as fastest driver, as did Massa on the hard tyres, but when the dust finally settled, it was Webber who had set the quickest time, a 1'32.7. Further down the order, both Toro Rosso drivers were inexplicably slow, leading to both of them being eliminated come the end of the session. On the other hand, Heikki Kovalainen was able to sneak his Lotus into Q2, but his teammate Jarno Trulli joined the Virgin and Hispania drivers in sitting out the rest of the afternoon, including highly-rated Australian debutant Daniel Ricciardo who has been placed at Hispania by sponsor Red Bull in place of Narain Karthikeyan for evaluation purposes – more about him in next week's post.

Eliminated – Jaime Alguersauri (Toro Rosso), Sebastien Buemi (Toro Rosso), Timo Glock (Virgin), Jarno Trulli (Lotus), Jerome D'Ambrosio (Virgin), Vitantonio Liuzzi (Hispania), Daniel Ricciardo (Hispania)

Q2

In between Q1 and Q2, a light shower erupted, but by the time the cars began to take to the track, it had already begun to dry. This presented a dilemma to the teams as to whether or not to send their drivers out with intermediate tyres. One team which decided to do exactly that was Mercedes, but it turned out to be the wrong choice as Nico Rosberg aborted his first flying lap and Michael Schumacher's lap was five seconds off the pace. Once again, Williams looked impressive as both its drivers set the fastest times early in the session, but as the track slowly began to dry out, Sergio Perez, Vitaly Petrov, Kamui Kobayashi and Adrian Sutil all did likewise until Alonso restored normality with a 1'31.7. Vettel could only muster a comparatively tardy 1'32.4, which seemed even more so when Webber took first place again with a time fractionally faster than Alonso's. Massa then went a tenth quicker than that just as the rain began to fall again, effectively freezing the order. This meant that Nick Heidfeld along with Barrichello, Perez, Petrov and Sutil were all left in the cold when the music stopped, despite having all led the way earlier in the session, whilst Schumacher simply couldn't pull the required lap time out of the bag. Unsuprisingly, Kovalainen's Lotus also lacked the requisite speed to make Q3.

Eliminated – Adrian Sutil (Force India), Sergio Perez (Sauber), Michael Schumacher (Mercedes), Vitaly Petrov (Renault), Rubens Barrichello (Williams), Nick Heidfeld (Renault), Heikki Kovalainen (Lotus)

Q3

With the track dry enough for slicks once more, Webber was the first to take to the track, setting a 1'30.4, a time of which Vettel fell less than a tenth short on his initial run. Hamilton's first run was two seconds off the pace after his McLaren team bizarrely opted to give him a worn set of slicks, his plight underlined by Alonso's time registering just a tenth slower than the Red Bull duo. Rosberg was also decidedly off the pace with a time only marginally better than that of Hamilton. Massa consolidated Ferrari's position by beating Button to fourth place by a margin of seven-tenths, with Paul Di Resta, Maldonado and Kobayashi all doing a commendable job to set the sixth, seventh and eighth fastest times respectively. Unfortunately for the Mercedes-powered cars (with the exception of Di Resta), the rain made another return, all but sealing Webber's pole position and the existing top ten order, even if Rosberg did try and improve his time regardless. He looked on course to gain several positions before finally abandoning the lap with several corners to go, leaving himself ninth and Hamilton a dejected tenth.

Top Ten – Mark Webber (Red Bull), Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull), Fernando Alonso (Ferrari), Felipe Massa (Ferrari), Jenson Button (McLaren), Paul Di Resta (Force India), Pastor Maldonado (Williams), Kamui Kobayashi (Sauber), Nico Rosberg (Mercedes), Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)

My Prediction

With rain looking likely to play at least a small part in Sunday's events, I'm going to predict something of an upset in the form of an overdue first win for Ferrari and Fernando Alonso:-

1. Alonso, 2. Webber, 3. Massa, 4. Button, 5. Kobayashi, 6. Hamilton, 7. Schumacher, 8. Di Resta, 9. Maldonado, 10. Perez

Admittedly, the absence of a certain German Red Bull driver from my prediction may smack of a liberal dose of optimism, but Canada showed that perhaps wet races do represent a minor weakness of the otherwise indefatigable reigning champion – a trip to some soggy gravel or an unaccommodating Armco barrier thus can't be ruled out. Conversely, Ferrari admitted that at the lottery that was Canada, 'their numbers didn't come up' in spite of a similarly strong starting position, so the law of averages dictates that luck should be more on the side of the Scuderia this time around, hence my forecasting Massa's maiden podium of the season. The McLarens will continue to suffer from a lack of speed, though this won't prevent a reasonable damage-limitation effort from Hamilton, with Kobayashi and Schumacher putting their wet-weather talents that were so heroically displayed at Canada to use once more to take home another hatful of points each. Sadly this will cost Di Resta and Maldonado a couple of places, but both will nonetheless score after a pair of solid drives, whilst Perez will make it three points-scoring rookies at Sutil's expense.

Of course, the rain means anything could happen if Canada is anything to go by, so make sure you come back here in twenty-four hours for a full rundown of events on what promises to be a thrilling British Grand Prix.

Under New Management - Part II: Red Bull & Force India

Not only have the manufacturer Formula One teams of Renault and Mercedes undergone various incarnations throughout their histories; in addition, the corporate-backed Red Bull and Force India teams have raced under several different guises in the past – allow me to take you through them all.

Red Bull (aka Stewart, Jaguar)

The current dominant force of today's F1 grid began life as the Stewart team, named after its founder, three-time champion Jackie Stewart. With the help of son Paul, who already ran a highly successful outfit in British Formula Three, Stewart's eponymous cars took to the grid in 1997 with backing from Ford, HSBC and the Malaysian tourism board. After three years of mixed fortune at Jordan, Rubens Barrichello opted to throw in his lot with the fledgling team in its inaugural season, with Jan Magnussen being recruited as the Brazilian's teammate thanks to his eye-catching performances in British F3 in 1994 that led Stewart to declare the Dane as the most exciting talent he'd seen since Ayrton Senna. The team disappointed initially with just one podium finish, courtesy of Barrichello in appalling conditions around the streets of Monaco in '97, during its first two seasons, in which time Magnussen had been replaced by Jos Verstappen after failing to live up to Stewart's high expectations. With the acquisition of acclaimed designer Gary Anderson from Jordan however, things took a major turn for the better in 1999 as Barrichello became a regular fixture on the podium. New teammate Johnny Herbert was even able to claim an unlikely win in a race of attrition at the Nurburgring, contributing to a strong fourth place in the constructors' standings. 

At the turn of the millennium, Ford took the decision to take over the team from the Stewarts and rename it after their Jaguar car brand, adorning the cars in British Racing Green in the process. Eddie Irvine, having lost the championship by a whisker to Mika Hakkinen in '99, did a straight swap with Ferrari-bound Barrichello to partner Herbert at what had very much become F1's English national effort. For all the hype though, unreliability combined with gross mismanagement from Ford's directors resulted in the team quickly becoming the disappointment of the grid, beating only financial minnows Minardi and Prost in 2000. Things failed to improve much in the following years, despite two podiums for Irvine, who bowed out of the sport at the end of 2002. His replacement was young Australian Mark Webber, who had achieved stardom in his very first F1 race with an excellent fifth place on home turf at Melbourne at the wheel of the Minardi, the least-fancied car of the grid. Webber quickly marked himself out as a qualifying specialist, but generally seemed to have trouble converting his impressive grid positions into points. This distinct lack of results and the apparent never-ending financial woes of Ford led to the US car giant putting its team up for sale in 2004. The buyer was a certain Austrian beverage magnate by the name of Dietrich Mateschitz, who, with the help of Messrs Horner and Newey, set about turning the struggling team into a world-beater.

Force India (aka Jordan, Midland, Spyker)

Force India's story dates back to 1991, when Irish businessman Eddie Jordan joined the F1 grid after achieving a great deal of success in Formula 3000. Jordan was able to put together quite a portfolio of sponsors with which to tackle the challenge, chief among them being Pepsi, whose 7UP brand led to Anderson's maiden F1 design being painted in an attractive green livery. Veteran Italian Andrea de Cesaris was signed, along with young Belgian Bertrand Gachot. Thanks to semi-regular points-scoring finishes throughout the season, the Irish squad took fifth in the constructors' championship out of 18 teams on a sparkling debut season. After the withdrawal of Pepsi and the team's reliable Ford engines however, success became harder to come by over the next few years, though the team built up something of a reputation for giving promising newcomers a try. When Gachot found himself imprisoned after assaulting a London taxi driver in 1991, one Michael Schumacher was drafted in as his replacement for Spa. The German immediately stunned, taking seventh on the grid on a track that'd he never before raced on. Sadly, his race was curtailed by clutch failure, though it is often forgotten that De Cesaris would have probably won the race but for mechanical maladies of his own. The rival Benetton team wasted no time in pinching Schumacher in time for the next round, but Jordan were also responsible for the debuts of future race-winners Barrichello, Irvine and Ralf Schumacher during the decade, acquiring a distinctive yellow livery courtesy of cigarette brand Benson & Hedges along the way. The team didn't win a race itself until 1998, where in treacherous conditions at Spa, Damon Hill and Ralf Schumacher took a famous one-two. This breakthrough was followed up by a pair of wins for German Heinz-Harald Frentzen in 1999, whose evident talent was unlocked by Jordan after two troubled seasons at Williams. As per Stewart/Jaguar however, 1999 proved to be Jordan's zenith as the team began a steady decline towards the rear of the grid. Initially, speed didn't appear to be lacking, but reliability certainly was, costing Jordan its position as 'best of the rest' behind Ferrari and McLaren. After parting ways with Frentzen on bitter terms in mid-2001 and losing its works Honda engine deal at the end of 2002, Jordan took one final, fortuitous win with Giancarlo Fisichella at a sodden Interlagos in 2003. 

By 2005, Jordan had joined Minardi as an established rear-of-the-grid runner, and Eddie Jordan finally sold out to Russian billionaire Alex Shnaider who re-christened the team Midland F1 for 2006. The team remained mired at the back despite a raft of fresh sponsors, and Shnaider sold the team to the small Dutch sportscar firm Spyker later that year. Once again a new owner had little impact on the team's performance, even if their driver Markus Winkelhock did lead the 2007 European Grand Prix extremely briefly after an inspired tyre choice in monsoon-like conditions. It was then announced that the team would be purchased by Indian billionaire Vijay Mallya, who gave the team its third name in as many years in 2008 – Force India.

Not be forgotten either are Scuderia Toro Rosso and Sauber who have also experienced changes in ownership – the former ran as the perennial Italian backmarker Minardi until its sale by owner Paul Stoddart in 2006 to Red Bull, while the latter have raced under the Sauber banner since their 1993 debut, including 2006-9, when the team was owned by well-known German car manufacturer BMW and thus named 'BMW Sauber'.

Next Sunday is the British Grand Prix, which will hopefully be somewhat more enthralling than the bore-fest was last week's race. Check back here on Saturday and Sunday for all the details of the qualifying and the race.