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In what turned out to be one of the best races of the season so far, Mercedes‘ Nico Rosberg managed a narrow win by just +0.7 seconds over Mark Webber of Red Bull. The race at Silverstone was full of events, safety cars and more than anything, tyre issues.
Let us now take a look at the major talking points.
Lewis Hamilton‘s pole position goes bust
Lewis Hamilton, in front of his home crowd took pole position during the qualifying session. But, he turned out to be one of the earliest victims of the tyre problem. His tyre got punctured in the 8th lap of the race when he was more than 2.5 seconds into the lead.
He had to go back into the pits and as a result, rejoined the race at the last position. But, after a sudden turn of events, Hamilton’s race was back on track and he managed a 4th place finish, only half a second away from podium.
Even Rosberg sympathized with saying “With Lewis I feel sorry – for all the British fans it would have been fantastic”
Kimi Raikkonen – Unlucky?
Starting from 8th position, Kimi managed a respectable 5th place finish losing on the podium finish due to an ambush in the last few laps by Alonso and Hamilton.
Vettel’s gearbox failed with 11 laps to go and the safety car was thrown in. That kind of changed the entire race. Now, before that, it was evident that Adrian Sutil of Force India and Raikkonen were opting for a 2 stop strategy. But, when the safety cars came in, Lotus F1′s radio said “Don’t know what to do Kimi, don’t know, stick to the plan”
If I had to speculate, I would say that Kimi wanted to go in for a fresh pair of tyres sensing the safety car but Lotus did not want to change the plan. Hamilton and Alonso however went into the pits for a fresh pair of tyres. This gave them a huge advantage in the final few laps of the race.
If Kimi had gone in, may be, he could have snatched up that last podium position.
Force India’s respectable race
After Paul di Resta’s car was found 1.5 kilograms under weight, his qualification results were discarded and was sent to the back of the pack. Adrian Sutil started at 6th.
di Resta managed to finish at 9th place, scoring points in the process once again and Sutil was unfortunate to finish at 7th after occupying the 3rd place for most of the race.
di Resta managed to hold off Lewis Hamilton for so long that the Silverstone crowd was almost furious at him. Adrian Sutil, like Kimi Raikkonen, didn’t go in for a 3rd pit stop and eventually had to concede his 3rd place to faster cars with less-degraded tyres.
Overall, it was a really respectable race for Force India who managed to score points from both their cars yet again this season.
Vettel’s gearbox failure that changed the race
Before Vettel’s gearbox failed, it was shaping into yet another mundane race where Sebastian Vettel wins. But, as his car started slowing and the roaring applauds from the Silverstone crowd began, the excitement started.
Safety cars were called in, the lead between cars were reduced, new tyres were brought in and the final 10 laps turned out to be action-packed.
If Vettel’s gearbox hadn’t failed, he would have comfortably won the race and Rosberg would have finished in the second place. At that time, Vettel and Rosberg had an 24s lead. But, the gearbox did fail and the momentum of the race changed completely.
Mark Webber – Man of the race!
Mark Webber, who was racing for the final time at Silverstone, had one heck of a race. The Australian, when the race resumed after Vettel’s gearbox failure, was occupying fifth spot behind Rosberg, Raikkonen, Sutil and Ricciardo.
With fresh tyres and relatively faster car, Webber wasn’t going to be stopped. One overtake after another, he went past Ricciardo, Sutil and Raikkonen using some amazing maneuvers.
With only two laps to go, he had better pace than race leader Nico Rosberg. But, Rosberg held on and won the race by only 0.7 second time difference. Mark Webber set the fastest time on his last lap. That is how close the race was. If it was for a few more laps, Webber could have easily won this race.
The Tyre controversy surfaces again
We will be talking about this race for a long time and the tyre controversy won’t fade away easily.
Sergio Perez, Lewis Hamilton, Jean-Eric Vergne and Felipe Massa were amongst those who suffered major problems with their tyres today.
Nobody seems to know what has caused all these problems. Some of them are blaming the kerbs that might have affected the left-rear tyre of all these cars. Pirelli, the tyre manufacturer however had no immediate response to the issue stating “We’ve seen something new, a different type of problem.”
Even if Pirelli are not the culprits here, their name has surely been tarnished.
