2010 Formula 1 Santander British Grand Prix (Silverstone)
As expected, it was a ‘Red Bull’ show at Sivlerstone, which was widely believed to be a circuit tailor-made to suit the RB6′s strengths. Mark Webber took a stranglehold on the race lead on lap one, and refused to let-go. He thus gave an awesome reply to his team-mate Sebastian Vettel, team owner Christian Horner and also his critics. But, at the end of it all, one wonders whether Mark would have to look for other options for the 2011 season, as the relation between the RBR drivers hit a new low. It all started at the end of Practice 3, when Sebastian Vettel suffered a front wing failure – the nose suddenly collapsed, causing the wing to drag along the floor. The front wing was one of the upgrades which the team had brought for this weekend, and as it turned out, the team only had two pieces of this latest spec available. Horner decided to give the remaining model to Vettel, and the wing was removed from Webber’s car and fitted onto Vettel’s. This was clear favouritism from the team, and did not go down well with the Aussie(and also the majority of F1 fans world wide). Later Vettel clinched pole, but only just.
For the race, Webber got off to a better start from the dirty side of the track, and passed Vettel. To make matters worse
for the German, Lewis Hamilton also passed him, and there was a little brush between the two. Vettel ran wide, suffered a right-rear puncture, and limped his way back into the pits. Behind all this, Robert Kubica took up third with Nico Rosberg and Fernando Alonso in his wheel tracks. Alonso was the first of the three to pit, Rosberg delaying his stop and able to jump ahead of Kubica by doing so. Soon, Alonso started hounding the Reanult, and drew alongside on the outside as the pair headed to Club. He squeezed past Kubica but cut across the corner by doing so. As Alonso did not give the position back, and also since Kubica soon retired with engine troubles, the stewards had no option but to hand a drive-through penalty to the Spaniard. To make matters worse for Alonso, there was a call-up for the safety car at this point, which meant the field would bunch-up and once he served his penalty, Alonso fell out of contention for points.
Nico Rosberg hung-on for a superb 3rd place finish and Jenson Button drove steadily to finish fourth. The McLaren driver gained six places at the start and then made his pit stop very late. That promoted him to sixth, after which he gained places thanks to Alonso’s penalty and a late pit stop for Nico Hülkenberg. After the restart, Vettel began to make a move, as he picked-off several cars to eventually finish 7th. But, it could have been a lot worse for Vettel, had there not been the safety car infringement. Williams came home to a double points finish, as Barichello finished 5th, and Hülkenberg 10th. Kamui Kobayashi registered his second successive points finish as he crossed the line 6th. Adrian Sutil was 8th, and Michael Schumacher 9th. After taking chequered flag, Webber had a clear message for the team – “Not bad for a number two”. Already, a lot of dirty linen has been washed in public by the Red Bull team management after the incidents in Turkey. The events here could just mark the beginning of the end of the association between RBR and Mark Webber. Now, it’s over to the Hockenheimring in Germany, for round 11 of the 2010 season, as the competition gets tighter.
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