Santander British Grand Prix Report

The 5 red lights went out and the 22 cars bolted off the line. Massa had a fantastic start. Raikkonen and Webber made contact at the first corner sending the Australian wide and damaging his front wing. Alonso had an initial good get away but started to wheel spin, which bogging him down.

The Mercedes got away well but Vettel just got the jump on Rosberg. Paul Di Resta started well too from the back, making up several places by lap 6. Webber’s front wing was badly damaged after the first corner contact. But then Lewis Hamilton had a tyre failure down the Wellington straight.The reaction at Silverstone was sheer devastation. Lewis the home man starting from pole, everyone was gutted. Then just a few laps later, the same thing happened to Massa at the same part of the track. The early stages of the British Grand Prix shaping up to be extremely interesting

The pitstop strategy was proving to be highly interesting. Vergne then suffered a left rear tyre failure at the end of the Hanger straight, it was a huge failure just in front of the two Lotus drivers. Pirelli will be having some serious questions to answer at the end of the race. Vettel pitted and the Red Bull team found cuts in his rear left tyre, suggesting debris had caused 3 failures in 13 laps.

The situation was getting worse with marshals and sweepers all over the track. but at the end of lap 21 the Safety Car peeled in and the race restarted. Vettel caught Rosberg napping and got a great restart. Webber was in a McLaren sandwich and pushing Perez hard. He got the job done on the entry to Brooklands. Drivers were being told to stay off the curbs and watch out through high speed corners, as the tyres seemed highly sensitive. any more failures would be a total disaster.

Sutil passed Alonso for third place, the Force India driver was having a great race. Vettel was beginning to pull a gap to the Mercedes of Rosberg behind. by lap 26 the gap was just over 2 seconds. Fernando Alonso was having a good race in the Ferrari considering his poor qualifying performance. Nico Hulkenberg was suffering a slow puncture, not good news for the German who was having a weekend to forget. Teammate Gutierrez suffered an explosion of carbon fibre raising concerns of yet more tyre failures.

Alonso pitted and he was pushing hard rejoining 11th. The team released the Ferrari into the path of Raikkonen, surely an unsafe release. It wasn’t stopping the Spaniard from setting the fastest lap a few laps later. Lewis Hamilton was losing place after place, Raikkonen, Alonso and Webber passed him within a lap. The home favourite was having a home race to forget. Adrian Sutil was beginning to fall back too, the race was proving very tricky to call. Hamilton and DiResta were having a fantastic battle for 13th place. there was even contact between them breaking Paul’s front wing end plate, he continued and the scrap was very exciting.

Daniel Ricciardo was performing well, but he got embroiled in a scrap with Sutil. But then Vettel who was so far dominating the race, slowed to a halt on the pit straight, he retired with a mechanical problem in the Red Bull. The Safety Car was deployed once again to recover the poorly Red Bull. The race restarted and Maldonado and Hulkenberg were very close to contact, but Sergio Perez had bigger problems as another tyre failed in this race, luckily he was off the racing line when it happened but in the packed bunch of cars it could have been so much more dangerous. The Mexican retired from the race.

Alonso, Hamilton and Ricciardo were all scrapping, the Toro Rosso losing out to both former champions.
Raikkonen and Webber had a sensational battle for 2nd with 5 laps remaining, it was so close between them, just a whisker apart and it was scintillating close racing. With just 2 laps to go Alonso passed Raikkonen for 3rd, it was a brilliant move by the Ferrari driver to claim the final podium spot. Hamilton then passed the Finn who on this occasion wasn’t flying, it was a tremendous recovery from the Mercedes driver to secure 4th place. Mark Webber pushed Nico Rosberg all the way to the finish, but didn’t quite get close enough. Nico Rosberg wins the British Grand Prix, an action packed and somewhat crazy race. Webber finished P2 with Alonso taking a brilliant P3.

I’ve seen some bizarre races in my time, but this just about tops it. Mercedes race pace appears to be improving immensely, Alonso and Webber drove brilliantly to recover from their setbacks. Lewis Hamilton also drove a sensational race, such a shame about the tyre failure, and as for Vettel, It’s not that often we see a Red Bull failing. Massa too deserves a shout out for his race, a great drive to 6th after his tyre failure. The British Grand Prix was dominated by the tyres for all the wrong reasons sadly.

Here are some highly interesting quotes regarding those tyre failures.

Firstly I spoke to Damon Hill.

TW. Damon that was a crazy race, what do you make of it?

DH. “It was a nerve racking race, and the tyres failing as they were was extremely concerning for the whole paddock”.

TW. What solution if any can there be for this?

DH. “A tyre which doesn’t fail, its not difficult we didn’t have this last year. You know, when the drivers are asked not to use the curbs, that’s clearly a step too far and this must be resolved as soon as possible otherwise someone is going to get seriously hurt”.

I then spotted Adrian Newey, dived right into the crowd of cameras and microphones. Here’s what he had to say so some of the other media.

German TV asked why the tyres were failing.

AN. “Well that’s really something for Pirelli, the only action we could take during the race was to tell the drivers to stay off the curbs as far as the left rear was concerned, as it was always the left rear, then in the pit stops we raised the rear tyre pressures”.

German TV, why did you raise the tyre pressures, why does that save the tyre?

AN. “The tyre failures appear to have been from the inside shoulder of the rear tyre, by raising the pressure you move the pressure contact patch more into the centre of the tyre rather than towards the edge”.

American TV, will you ask the FIA to force this through now? (meaning a different tyre construction, and resolution of the problem)

AN. “I would be very disappointed if after today there continues to be no action”.

Adrian Also confirmed in the interview that it was Transmission failure which caused Sebastian Vettel’s DNF.

Then I decided to ask him a question.

TW. Are the tyres a concern for future races Adrian?

AN. “Well yes they are a concern for the whole team and the paddock really, because both primarily from a safety point of view, and also if the championship ends up being decided by random tyre failures then it wouldn’t be a very satisfying championship”.

TW. Having just spoken to Damon Hill, he said it was quite a scary race in terms of safety would you agree?

AN. “Yes I think safety there are potentially two issues, firstly there’s the car that has the failure having an accident due to that failure, and secondly there’s the 3 kilos or so of tread flying around if that hits the following car then the consequences doesn’t bare thinking about”.