2010 British Grand Prix - Webber Overcomes Bitterness For Sweet Silverstone Success

Two weeks after his 196mph brush with death at the European Grand Prix, Mark Webber reignited his title bid, with a measured and dominant victory in the British Grand Prix yesterday.  The Australian, helped by an aggressive start on the front row of the grid, led from lights-to-flag.  Second place for Lewis Hamilton was enough to extend his championship lead.  However, despite Webber’s win, fractions inside the Red Bull camp seem to be at an all-time low.  Mark’s relationship with team boss Christian Horner seems to be beyond repair.

The issue was first raised by Red Bull bringing two new front wings to this event, only to see one fly off Sebastian Vettel’s car in the closing stages of Saturday morning practice.  With Vettel’s new wing too badly damaged, Horner made a controversial decision, to take the new spec off Webber and hand it to Vettel.  Sebastian went on to take pole position, and Mark was angry and seething with rage and fury in the driver’s press conference afterwards.  On Sunday, after his win – Webber’s message to millions was clear: “Not a bad effort from a No.2 driver.”  Horner responded by saying “You can smile now!”  Apparently, there was then a confrontation that wasn’t broadcast involving who would go up on the podium between the two, and even at the winner’s photograph, the reception looked rather frosty.  Red Bull is not far away from pressing the self-destruct button completely.

Vettel’s race was ruined by a poor getaway, Webber forcing him onto the Astroturf and then after a kiss from Hamilton’s front wing, punctured his left rear tyre.  He went off at Becketts and was left to limp back to the pits, lucky not to lose a lap in the process.  Only a Safety Car at mid-distance, to clear up flying debris from Pedro de la Rosa’s Sauber gave the German a chance to get some decent points.  This he took, with some aggressive passes on many midfield drivers, raising him to 7^th by the chequered flag.  His disappointment after the race could be told by the expression on his face in the post-race interviews.

Having begun 4^th, Hamilton drove another measured, assured race to second spot, a far cry from last year’s hideous outing, when he finished 16^th in a dog of a car.  Fellow Brit Jenson Button fought through from a nightmare 14^th on the grid, to finish an outstanding 4^th and slip to only twelve points behind Lewis.  After a difficult start to the weekend, which involved a new McLaren package having to be abandoned on Saturday morning, due to the difficulty the drivers were finding to drive with it, 2^nd and 4^th is a major save for the Woking team.  The final podium spot went to Nico Rosberg, a massive improvement from the terrible weekend that Mercedes had in Valencia a fortnight ago.  Rosberg started 5^th, jumped Robert Kubica at the pitstops and held off a limited Button attack to record his third rostrum of the season.  Michael Schumacher made gradual improvements, and but for two costly mistakes in qualifying and the race, could well have done much better, than his 9^th placed result suggests.

Ferrari left Silverstone red-faced again, with no points and their drivers at war.  Felipe Massa’s crazy lunge on the slow-starting Fernando Alonso on the first lap left the Brazilian with a puncture and well out of contention.  Alonso’s ambitious overtaking attempt on Kubica at Club, which saw the Spaniard cut part of the corner to get infront, left him with a harsh drive-through penalty and also no chance of points.  Kubica couldn’t capitalise, a suspension failure seeing the Pole chalk up his first DNF of the 2010 season.  Rubens Barrichello, who loves this place had a brilliant weekend, qualifying 8^th and finishing a strong 5^th.  With team-mate Nico Hulkenberg also in the points, in 10^th, Williams continue their radical improvements.  Kamur Kobayashi scored an excellent 6^th for Sauber, on a strong weekend for the Swiss team, with de la Rosa looking at points too, before his rear wing started to collapse.  This was down to contact with Adrian Sutil on the start-finish straight, but Sutil survived this to end up 8^th and points for the sixth successive event.

Mark Webber may have won the British Grand Prix and will have cherished this sweet success very personally.  However, if Red Bull doesn’t sort out the relationship between their drivers and the hierarchy ASAP, then it might well be McLaren, Hamilton and Button smiling at the end of the season.  Next stop in this fascinating battle is Hockenheim, in two weeks time.