F1: British Report - Vettel Leads Red Bull Domination

[Rory Phoulorie]

Sunday 21st June 2009



Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber put the BrawnGPs to shame in Britain as lap after lap they displayed their superior pace, taking the 1-2 ahead of Rubens Barrichello.

Vettel, starting from pole position, put in a succession of fastest laps as he edged away from Barrichello in the opening stint of the race. And once his team-mate Mark Webber was able to leapfrog the Brazilian in the first round of pit-stops there was no stopping Red Bull Racing from claiming the 1-2.

Meanwhile, Felipe Massa put his disappointing P11 on the grid to good use, starting the race with a heavy fuel load that saw him bring his car home in fourth place, ahead of Nico Rosberg.

Jenson Button could find no way past Jarno Trulli at the start and was passed by slower cars on lap 1, ruining his strategy on a cool day when tyre temperatures did not suit the heat-loving BrawnGP cars.

Jarno Trulli and Kimi Raikkonen competed the top eight in a race that saw the best action take place between World Champions Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton. Alas they were fighting for 16th place at the time.

Race Report

The ambient temperature was at 16C with the track up at 30C as sunny intervals bathed a spectator-packed Silverstone circuit.

As the red lights went out Rubens Barrichello got a much better start than at Turkey, but it still wasn't quite enough to trouble Sebastian Vettel, starting from pole. Vettel had just enough to edge across and take the line into Copse

Mark Webber slotted into third and Kazuki Nakajima had an easy ride into fourth after P4 on the grid, Jarno Trulli,got away slowly. Trulli's lack of pace off the line affected Jenson Button who was directly behind the Toyota. When Jenson went to go up the inside Trulli edged across and that was his line into Copse blocked.

Outside of him, Raikkonen, Rosberg and Massa piled past leaving him 9th (from 6th) at the first corner.

Button tried to get Massa into Becketts but thought better of it at the last minute, but Nico Rosberg was more successful at getting by Jarno Trulli at the end of the Hangar Straight.

So at the end of the first lap the positions were: 1.Vettel, 2.Barrichello, 3.Webber, 4.Nakajima, 5.Raikkonen, 6.Rosberg, 7.Trulli, 8.Massa, 9.Button, 10.Glock, 11.Heidfeld, 12.Alonso

On Lap 2, Button was through to P8 after Massa ran wide at the exit of Stowe. Alonso was duelling with Robert Kubica and took the BMW out wide at the end of the Hangar Straight as the Pole tried to take the outside line. The following Fisichella couldn't believe his luck and just took the apex of Stowe corner and 12th place from 14th.

A lap later and Lewis Hamilton was almost through to P14 when Alonso had a wobble at the exit of Becketts and pushed him wide onto the grass and the BMW of Robert Kubica overtook them both.

At the front, Sebastian Vettel set about opening a gap to Barrichello. On the opening lap he had a 1.5 second lead, after a succession of fastest laps, that lead was up to 10.8 seconds on Lap 9 and 13.4 seconds by lap 13.

Red Bull team,-mate Mark Webber was stuck in the dirty air from Rubens Barrichello's BrawnGP and couldn't get past.

Unseen by the cameras, Giancarlo Fisichella had got himself ahead of Nick Heidfeld by Lap 4 and the BMW engineers were reporting that he was losing 1.5 seconds a lap on the Force India driver in front. Heidfeld refused to return to the pits and opted to stay out, lapping at 1:24s while Fisichella was in the mid 1:22s. As a result, by Lap 13 there was an enormous 20 second gap between 11th and 12th.

Fernando Alonso had managed to re-take Robert Kubica, but he was now stuck behind Heidfeld and unable to get past the German. Kubica trailed Alonso and Hamilton trailed Kubica.

Kazuki Nakajima pitted from 4th place at the end of Lap 15 and slumped back to 11th place. Raikkonen pitted from 4th place the following lap and rejoined in front of Nakajima. Then, on Lap 18 when Button, Trulli and Rosberg pitted all together, Trulli jumped Raikkonen and Nakajima, Button jumped Nakajima and Rosberg jumped Nakajima and Raikkonen.

It had gone from: Nakajima, Raikkonen, Rosberg, Trulli, Button
to Rosberg, Trulli, Raikkonen, Button, Nakajima.

Barrichello pitted a lap later and Mark Webber, who was able to run a lap longer than the Brazilian, was able to exit the pitlane just a few metres in front of the BrawnGP car. But it was enough. When Webber had pitted, Vettel's lead was already up to 23 seconds and it was now a question of engine management till the end of the race.

However the biggest gainer in the first pit-stops was Felipe Massa, who sailed on until Lap 23 and hoisted his Ferrari up to 5th place. So, on Lap 25 the positions were: 1.Vettel 21.5 seconds in front of; 2.Webber 4.2 seconds up on; 3.Rubens Barrichello who had just 1.3 seconds on; 4.Rosberg, 5.Massa, 6.Trulli, 7.Raikkonen, 8.Button, 9.Nakajima, 10.Fisichella, 11.Glock

On Lap 29, 15th place Fernando Alonso had run wide at Luffield allowing Lewis Hamilton through on the inside. As they accelerated out of the exit of Woodcote side by side Lewis Hamilton had the inside line running into Copse and Alonso finally gave way through the 185mph corner.

It was a hairy moment for the two World Champions, but not quite as dangerous as an overtaking move Hamilton had made seven laps earlier. Nick Heidfeld, pulling out of the pitlane exit moved across the road through Maggots to take the line coming into Becketts not realising that Lewis Hamilton was steaming through on the inside.

It would have been easy for Hamilton to lift, as at that stage they were battling for 18th and 19th places, but the World Champion kept his foot glued to the floor and just about made it into Beckets first without any contact being made.

Hamilton ruined his pass on Alonso by running too deep into Beckets while trying to pass the inconsistent Nelson Piquet and ran wide at the exit letting Alonso pass him easily on the Hangar Straight.

The middle stint of the race was characterised by Vettel managing the gap to second placed Mark Webber and Rubens Barrichello (now on the hard tyres for a long stint) dropping back and seeming to hold up Nico Rosberg and Felipe Massa, neither of whom could get close enough to make an overtaking move.

On Lap 35 Sebastian Bourdais provided the only moment of controversy in the race when he tried to overtake the one-stopping Heikki Kovalainen into Vale. Kovalainen moved to cover the line and Bourdais ran inexpertly into the back of him comprehensively destroying his front wing. Kovalainen's rear tyre was punctured and both had to hobble back to the pits.

There was too much damage for the Finn to continue and Toro Ross couldn't fit a new nose safely to the front of Bourdais' car and both were out.

With an almost assured Red Bull 1-2 evident from after the first pit-stops, the question now was how long had everybody been fuelled? Rubens had Rosberg and Massa in close pursuit, 3rd, 4th and 5th. Trulli had Raikkonen and Button in close pursuit, 6th, 7th and 8th.

Raikkonen pitted on Lap 42 (falling behind Button), Rosberg on Lap 43 (falling behind Massa), Massa on Lap 45, Trulli on Lap 46 (falling behind Button but keeping in front of Raikkonen), Barrichello on Lap 47 (giving himself big gap to Massa) and Button on Lap 49 (jumping Trulli and Raikkonen).

So the order was now: 1.Vettel, 2. Webber, 3.Barrichello, 4.Massa, 5.Rosberg, 6.Button. 7.Trulli, 8.Raikkonen, 9.Glock.

With both Brawns running the harder, slower tyre in the middle stint, they were able to go quicker than their rivals in the final stint on the sift tyre and all of a sudden Button was catching Massa and Rosberg at over a second a lap. With four laps left to run, Button got the gap down to 0.8 of a second, but he was never close enough to make a passing move on the Williams driver.

Vettel duly crossed the line to win his first grand prix in dry conditions, the German never having been troubled from the moment he got to Copse corner first. Mark Webber took a distant podium, over 25 seconds clear of third placed man Barrichello.

It had been an uneventful race where the inadequacy of the 2009 aero regulations had been fully exposed and stifled any real racing from 3rd place down to 17th. The World Champions came home 8th (Raikkonen), 14th (Alonso) and 16th (Hamilton) possibly their worst combined showing in 2009.

The sheer size and enthusiasm of the crowd was in stark contrast to the empty silence of the Turkish GP. If the FIA and FOM are really concerned about serving the fans they might ask themselves why popular races such as Australia, Canada and Britain so regularly come under threat.

Brawn will be hoping for warmer races to come, when the heat of the track will give them the grip they were lacking at Silverstone and degrade the tyre sof their Red Bull opposition.

FH

Results

01 S. Vettel Red Bull 1:22:49.328
02 M. Webber Red Bull + 15.188
03 R. Barrichello Brawn GP + 41.175
04 F. Massa Ferrari + 45.043
05 N. Rosberg Williams + 45.915
06 J. Button Brawn GP + 1:06.285
07 J. Trulli Toyota + 1:08.307
08 K. R�ikk�nen Ferrari + 1:09.622
09 T. Glock Toyota + 1:09.823
10 G. Fisichella Force India F1 + 1:11.522
11 K. Nakajima Williams + 1:14.023
12 N. Piquet jr. Renault + 1 laps
13 R. Kubica BMW + 1 laps
14 F. Alonso Renault + 1 laps
15 N. Heidfeld BMW + 1 laps
16 L. Hamilton McLaren + 1 laps
17 A. Sutil Force India F1 + 1 laps
18 S. Buemi Scuderia Toro Rosso + 1 laps
Did not finish
19 S. Bourdais Scuderia Toro Rosso + 23 laps
20 H. Kovalainen McLaren + 24 lap

Planet F1

[Rory Phoulorie]

I missed this race.

[MG Man]