Red Bull Motorsports
F1
This is what went down at the British Grand Prix
Sebastian Vettel wins on Lewis Hamilton's home turf to equal Alain Prost's 51 victories, while the world champion leads an epic comeback from a first lap spin.
A capacity crowd came to Silverstone to watch the 69th Formula One World Championship British Grand Prix. They were greeted by one of the best and certainly one of the most closely fought races the old airfield has ever seen. Ultimately, though, most of them didn't get what they wanted.
Sebastian Vettel triumphed for Ferrari, winning by 2.2 seconds over Lewis Hamilton, with Kimi Räikkönen a further second behind in the second Ferrari.
Sometimes things just come together. It isn't often Silverstone enjoys record temperatures, but it did this year. It isn't often there's a Safety Car deployed at the perfect moment to ignite a race in danger of guttering, but it did today. It isn't often, either, that full grandstands receive a grandstand finish, but, well, they did today.
Silverstone kept up the drama from start to finish. Hamilton, gunning for a record sixth British Grand Prix victory, got a poor start from pole position. Too much wheelspin off the line saw him swamped by team-mate Valtteri Bottas and Vettel. Things then got worse for the home hero. In the process of recovering, he was tapped from behind and forced into a spin by Räikkönen, who steamed into the third corner with smoke pouring off a locked wheel, for which he received a penalty. Hamilton was punted to the back of the field.
The Ferraris had the early pace, as Vettel shot by Bottas to grab the lead, while a recovering Räikkönen soon went by Daniel Ricciardo's Red Bull to take P4, slotting in behind Max Verstappen.
Hamilton has often expressed his enjoyment of a committed charge through the field, while Vettel is clearly most comfortable controlling a race from the front. Silverstone gave both the chance to do what they enjoy, and as the race settled down, the interest for the crowd was seeing if Hamilton could scythe his way through and catch Vettel, as the latter set about building a lead.
The big strategy question was one pitstop or two? One stop was supposed to be quicker, unless it was hot and the tyres degraded quickly – and it was hot. One stop still looked like the more straightforward option because, this year overtaking isn't easy, but a two-stop strategy was at least a possibility.
When Räikkönen stopped on lap 13, it could have been a sign of a budding two-stopper – or perhaps just Ferrari hedging their bets. It was a little early, and when Daniel Ricciardo stopped on lap 18, he emerged ahead of the Finn. The Australian however took the two-stop route, pitting again on lap 30, after which the running order was Vettel, Bottas, Verstappen, Räikkönen, Hamilton and Ricciardo, with the usual yawning chasm of 30 seconds back to best-of-the-rest Nico Hülkenberg.
All things remaining equal, the interest in the second half of the race would have been a series of individual trials. Could Räikkönen catch Verstappen? Would Hamilton's charge continue? Could Ricciardo make use of the fresher tyres to mount a late race charge. It didn't quite pan-out that way following the intervention of Marcus Ericsson.
The Swede had been lapping in P14 until a snap oversteer saw him hammer his Sauber into the barriers at Turn One, in an accident nearly identical to the one that wiped out Romain Grosjean during Friday's practice. The Safety Car came out and, with 22 laps remaining, drivers had to decide whether to stick or twist.
Vettel pitted, as did Verstappen and Räikkönen. The Mercedes drivers opted to take track position over fresh rubber and stayed out. Ricciardo was unlucky – pitting two laps before the Safety Car meant his gamble to surrender track position didn’t pay off. When the Safety Car pulled in, Bottas led from Vettel, Hamilton, Verstappen, Räikkönen and Ricciardo.
The first restart was, in effect, a false restart, as Romain Grosjean and Carlos Sainz tangled down the field and the Safety Car hared back out again while the debris was cleared. The drivers at the front weren't to know this, though, and the crowd were treated to a quite brilliant battle between Räikkönen and Verstappen that had them ducking, weaving as they drove side-by-side through the mighty Copse corner. Vestappen held position, just. It was to come to nothing however, as he began to struggle and ultimately retired seven laps from home with a brake-by-wire problem.
At the front, Vettel was on the charge. At times Bottas seemed to have him under control, but with one final effort, the Ferrari drive made his tyre advantage pay and swept into the lead with five laps to go.
Behind the top three, Bottas limped home on worn tyres in fourth, successfully holding off Daniel Ricciardo by a margin of 0.6 seconds at the line. Hülkenberg retained sixth for Renault, Esteban Ocon was seventh for Force India. Fernando Alonso took eighth for McLaren, getting ahead of Haas's Kevin Magnusson on the last lap, and Pierre Gasly crossed the line to finish 10th before a subsequent five-second penalty saw the final point go to Sergio Pérez in the second Force India.
A successful damage-limitation exercise did little to console runnr-up Hamilton. Once again, the topic of inadequate penalties came to the fore. As in France, a Ferrari hit a Mercedes and received a penalty, but the Scuderia did not seem to suffer greatly for the exchange of paint. It wasn't so clear cut today, since Hamilton was third when hit and finished second, ahead of Räikkönen, but the reigning world champion clearly felt hard done by. The Briton made clear that he didn’t bear Räikkönen any particular ill will, instead pointing the finger at an anaemic response from the stewards' office.
"It's now two races that the Ferraris have taken out one of the Mercedes, and a five-second penalty and a 10-second penalty doesn’t work. Ultimately it spoils the race," Hailton said. "It's a lot of points that ultimately Valtteri and I have lost in those two scenarios."
Vettel was understandably rather more upbeat. He has now matched Alain Prost’s total of 51 Grand Prix victories, and at the same the circuit where Prost became the first driver to claim a half century of wins. Perhaps of more immediate importance, Vettel has stretched his lead over Hamilton to eight points, while Ferrari now have a cushion of 20 points in the Constructors' Championship.
"The race was fantastic," said a jubilant Vettel. "We got a great crowd and a race I enjoyed a lot. I think the people enjoyed it a lot, really an amazing day."
The story of the weekend
Surface tension
Silverstone hosted the first-ever Formula One World Championship Grand Prix, and many bits of the fragile old place hadn't changed since May 13, 1950. This year however the track had been completely resurfaced, partially to provide a smoother surface for MotoGP (as was the case with the similar resurfacing of the Circuit de Catalunya), partially to provide a consistency of surface rather than the patchwork quilt of of-repaired asphalt, and partially to change the cambers at various corners to improve the drainage. There's some irony in, having sorted out the drainage, Silverstone got the driest, hottest British Grand Prix in years.
The driver response has not been uniformly positive, with complaints that the surface is bumpy. Lewis Hamilton called it "bumpier than the [very bumpy] Nordschleife", adding that "it's rattling your eyeballs out of your brain." Kimi Räikkönen and Fernando Alonso went the other way however. "I think it's less bumpy, it's just smaller bumps. Last year there were bigger bumps here and there," said the Iceman.
Of course, it's not all down to the surface. Silverstone has a sequence of massively fast corners, and the incredible sequence from Copse to Stowe, via the fast changes of direction in Maggotts, Becketts and Chapel, induces teams to run a very stiff car, the effect of which is not unlike simply nailing the wheels to the chassis. Spare a thought for MotoGP, who come here next month. If the track was bumpy before this weekend, after having F1 cars pound around it, it will almost certainly be worse. "I feel sorry for the MotoGP guys who asked for change," said Carlos Sainz. "They’re probably not getting what they want."
Hard work for Williams
Spare a thought for Williams this weekend. The most British of teams have had many happy days at Silverstone, with eight of their 10 British Grand Prix victories coming on this circuit. It was the site of their first victory (Clay Regazzoni,1979) and their hundredth (Jacques Villeneuve,1997), and for a period in the 1990s the biggest worry for the team was getting their winning car back to the garage without it being stripped by a horde of track-invading fans. It's not quite the same at the moment.
Last in the championship and with a problematic car, deputy team principal Claire Williams, with raw honesty, called the team's current travails "heart-breaking and a little bit soul destroying." With lots of blue and white in the grandstands, the full extent of the team's problems were laid bare in qualifying, with both cars spinning off into the gravel after an aerodynamic stall caused by the airflow not reattaching after the DRS was deactivated. The two cars came home in 13th and 14th position, the last runners to see the chequered flag.
Abbey abnormal
Fans of a certain age are still surprised when cars go right at Abbey rather than left, but the idea that the new infield section of the 'Arena' layout is the slow bit of Silverstone was thoroughly dispelled this year, with Abbey, the new Turn 1, suddenly becoming F1’s hairiest corner.
The FIA instituted a third DRS zone for this year's race, located on the start-finish straight. In theory, it should have ended at the first turn, but most drivers were able to keep the DRS flap open all the way to Turn 3. It's all about the deactivation protocol: DRS zones have an activation point, but no defined end, as the flap simply drops when the driver hits the brakes, usually at the end of the DRS straight.
This year however the tyres have more grip, the cars have more downforce and they can go through Turn 1 flat-out – so the DRS stays open until the cars brake for Village corner. That was a bit extreme for most, and so drivers who have a button-operated DRS were opting to manually close it before the corner, use the extra downforce to negotiate the bend, and then open the flap again on the other side. The benefit was believed to be worth around 150milliseconds. We did, however see both Romain Grosjean and Marcus Ericsson in crash heavily with the DRS open. In Grosjean's case it was because he hit a bump and failed to manually deactivate the flap.
