Monday 12 July 2010

Guest Post by Elton McManus - The British Grand Prix




By Elton McManus


British Grand Prix, Silverstone 11th July 2010

Well, an epic weekend was had at the British GP, Silverstone.The weekend started off slow for McLaren, struggling with their new blown diffuser. Once it was decided that it wouldn’t be used because it was causing parts of the body work to overheat & proved difficult to drive with, Garry Paffet (test driver) spent most of the night on the companies simulator trying to find a good set up, or base line, for Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton to use in Saturday practice.


Hamilton went on to qualify 4th behind the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso while Button started a lonely 14th. The front row of the grid being locked out by the Red Bulls' of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber but only after the new front wing of Webber’s car had been removed and put onto the “#1” car of Vettel’s.

Both cars went into the weekend with a new spec of front wing but the Germans had been damaged beyond repair after it fell off it’s mountings at 170mph through Abbey corner. Now this is where the fun begins.....

When the light went out for the start of the race Webber got the jump on his team mate. Vettel tried to squeeze him but to no avail, and Webber was through closely followed by Hamilton. The McLaren driver had to lift going into Copse, as he did Vettel’s left rear brushed the end plate of Hamilton’s front wing, possibly causing the puncture on the Red Bull as it dived into Maggotts corner for the first time. Vettel was relegated to the back of the pack as he costed around to the pits.

Alonso’s weekend was ruined by a silly incident involving Robert Kubica at Vale corner. The Ferrari drive tried to go around the outside of the Renault but was legitimately squeezed onto the grass, Alonso gained a position which he should have given back straight away but the Spaniard thought being in the quicker car gave him the right to be in front and so he carried on, only to be penalized a few laps later. Now if Kubica hadn’t retired from the race, Alonso may have just been asked to let him through and carry on as if nothing had happened (as it has in the past) but it wasn’t to be that easy. Kubica retired, Alonso was dealt a drive through penalty he had to serve after a Safety Car period after Pedro De La Rosa’s rear wing had disintegrated on Hanger Straight. That put Alonso towards the back and to finish 14th.

Later on Vettel made a sweet pass on Michael Schumacher but only to be held up for several laps by Adrian Sutil. Vettel finally barged his way through into 7th while up front Webber won with ease.

On the slow down lap, Red Bull team leader Christian Horner congratulated Webber on a fantastic race win. The response he was met with was “Not bad for a number two driver”.

Lets all hope the Red Bull wonder team doesn’t implode before the end of the season.

Result

1 Mark Webber - Red Bull Renault

2 Lewis Hamilton - McLaren Mercedes

3 Nico Rosberg - Mercedes GP

4 Jenson Button - McLaren Mercedes

5 Rubens Barrichello - Williams Cosworth


Standings

1 Hamilton - 145 points

2 Button - 133

3 Webber - 128

4 Vettel - 121

5 Alonso - 98


Pussycat Doll sighting..... 0


Next Race - Germany July 25th


Elton McManus (Elton can be heard on both 'An Apotheosis of A Bomabast' or 'Re-Thinking Lost' podcasts. They can be found at bombastpodcast.podbean.com/ & rethinkinglost.podbean.com/


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