Red Bull gives you (old) wings!
Marc Webber won the British Grand Prix on Sunday and I was there to see it! Having been to several Grand Prix both here and in Europe over the last ten years, I can say that this was probably the best one I've seen. Almost as a rebuke to my last post, in which I ran down the calibre of the Grand Prix support races, there was a good race in every category. However, I do have a feeling that this may be in some way to do with the layout of the Silverstone track. The new circuit seemed to give even more opportunities for overtaking, along with Silverstone's signature white-knuckle fast corners.
Support races and layout's aside, the main story of the weekend was the controversy that erupted in the Red Bull team. Both cars had been fitted with a new developmental front wing, which Seb Vettel managed to smash in an off during practice. It was then ordered that Webber's wing should be transferred over to his team mates car. Whether or not this was a major contributing factor to the car's overall performance is neither here nor there, but what it shows to the outside world is a clear preference for Sebastien Vettel to be champion this year. If the team was being run to a joint number one system, then Vettel would have just had to make do with the old wing.
During the press conference on Saturday it was clear that the Australian was furious and that anger probably contributed to his fine performance the next day. Indeed, from where my brother and I were sitting at Stowe corner, Webber seemed to be putting in a muscular, controlled performance that tempered aggression with mature race-craft. In fact, his performance was probably the only constant in the whole race (apart from Lewis Hamilton's dogged pursuit of him).
At the other end of the scale, Fernando Alonso's fiery, exciting and ultimately unrewarding drive was fascinating to watch. It was a gloves-off and slightly unhinged show of great car control. His hounding of Robert Kubica and the Force India's later on in the race was great to watch. Although the Spaniard's ham fisted attempt at overtaking the Pole did seem to take a bit of the shine off things (and earned him a drive-through penalty). Thanks to this and the collision with team mate Massa, one gets the impression that Ferrari need to pull their socks up a bit.
Special mention should go to Jensen Button's fourth place, especially after the Englishman started in 14th on the grid. He made up sixth places on the first lap, stayed out and changed his tyres late to jump two places and capitalised on Kubica's retirement. All in all, an excellent save of a weekend that could have turned into a disaster for the McLaren driver.
Bruno Senna was strangely absent from the Hispania racing team this weekend, with Japanese driver Sakon Yamamoto stumping up the cash to take his place for the race. He needn't have bothered, the cars were painfully slow. An old bedford van would have been as effective!
Now it's over, I'd better start saving my pennies for next year!
