DRS zone on Wellington Straight for Silverstone

One straight will be used for DRS in Silverstone

One single DRS zone will be used for the British Grand Prix.

The activation zone will feature for the entire Wellington Straight, the back straight section that was added in renovations last year.

It will continue on until the braking zone of Turn 6 (corner numbers were changed after relocation of pit straight). The detection area will be in the braking zone of Village (Turn 3).

This DRS location will give drivers the opportunity to use DRS through the Turn 4 kink all throughout the weekend, so expect to see Red Bull making full use of this feature.

Ricciardo to drive for HRT from British GP onwards

Ricciardo is expected to alternate drives with Liuzzi and Karthikeyan

Daniel Ricciardo, former test driver for Toro Rosso, has been confirmed as a race driver for HRT, starting from the British Grand Prix.

Oddly enough, the team statement did not explain which of their drivers would be replaced, suggesting that their 3 drivers may shuffle positions for the rest of the year.

The deal was made between Hispania and Dr. Helmut Marko, a senior figure in Red Bull Racing. This will further fuel rumours that Ricciardo has been hand-picked to race for Red Bull in several years.

The statement from the team reads as follows:

"Hispania Racing and Red Bull Racing signed a collaboration deal today which allows 
young Australian talent Daniel Ricciardo to join the Spanish team as its official 
driver.

The current Formula 1 World Champion team has shown trust in Hispania Racing’s 
project and has chosen José Ramón Carabante’s team as a support for the formation 
and development of its driver.

Australian driver Daniel Ricciardo, who was behind the steering-wheel in every first 
practice session of the eight grand prix up to now, will finally see his dream come 
true and become a Formula 1 race-driver starting from next week’s British Grand Prix.

Daniel Ricciardo joins Narain Karthikeyan and Vitantonio Liuzzi as official drivers 
of the Spanish Formula 1 team, Hispania Racing."

This is practically a repeat of what happened last year with Hispania, where Sakon Yamamoto replaced Bruno Senna and Karun Chandhok from the British GP onwards.

While it has not been yet confirmed, it is expected that Narain Karthikeyan will make way for Ricciardo, considering teammate Vitantonio Liuzzi’s domination over him this year. However, if this is the case, it is almost certain that Karthikeyan will still race at the inaugural Indian Grand Prix.

Ricciardo has test driven with Toro Rosso at every first practice session so far this year. He was poised to replace either Sebastien Buemi or Jaime Alguersuari. However, in recent races, the two have improved and are currently level on points. The fact that Ricciardo has been shipped off to HRT indicates that Toro Rosso is still pleased with the performance of their drivers.

Ferrari were not given immediate order to allow Kubica through

In a complete contrast to Charlie Whiting’s evidence given a few days ago, it has emerged that Ferrari were not immediately ordered to instruct Fernando Alonso to allow Robert Kubica through at the British Grand Prix. Gazzetta Dello Sport has published the transcript of pit wall communications during the incident, which show that there was a long delay between the incident and Whiting advising Ferrari to let Kubica through.

Fernando Alonso battles with Robert Kubica, and cuts the next corner

According to Charlie Whiting, he immediately told Ferrari to let Kubica through. However, the radio transcript tells a different story:

13:31:05 The overtaking move takes place at Club and after one second Rivola calls Whiting, who replies after 11 seconds. Rivola asks: ‘Have you seen the pass? In our opinion there was no room to overtake.’

26 secs after the pass, Whiting asks to be given time to watch the TV footage.

13:33 Ferrari makes a second radio call – 1m55s after the pass. Alonso has completed another lap plus one sector, and is behind Nico Rosberg and Jaime Alguersuari, while Kubica drops further back.

Whiting tells Ferrari that the stewards think Alonso could give the position back. Rivola asks: ‘Is this the decision?’

Whiting replies: ‘No, but that’s how we see it.’

Rivola informs the team while Rosberg overtakes Alguersuari. On the GPS screen that shows the position of the cars, Ferrari sees Kubica dropping further back. Meanwhile, Alonso overtakes Alguersuari at Turn 2.

13:33:22 Ferrari makes a third radio call.

Rivola tells Whiting: ‘Alonso doesn’t have only Kubica behind. He would have to concede two positions now.’

While they discuss the matter Kubica is overtaken by Barrichello so Alonso would have to now give up three positions.

Whiting replies: ‘We have given you the chance to do it or not. Things being this way, the stewards will hear the drivers at the end of the race, but I understand your position.’

13:35:30 Kubica stops so Alonso can no longer give the position back.

13:45:31 The stewards investigate the Alonso/Kubica incident. The monitors then display ‘car number 8 under investigation’, 14m26s after the pass.

13:46:26 Just 55 seconds later the stewards decide that Alonso should have a drive-through penalty.

This shows that Whiting had a delay of two minutes of telling Ferrari to let Kubica through, not instantly like he had previously stated. Also, this would prove Ferrari’s claim that Kubica was dropping down the field too quickly to allow through, and it would have unfairly disadvantaged Alonso.

After a look at this evidence, I would have to question the drive-through penalty a little bit more. For sure, Fernando should have allowed Kubica through instantly, without his team telling him to, but it does seem strange that Charlie Whiting would have told the story incorrectly.

At the end of the day, while a drive-through penalty is still justifiable, the stewards’ time spent deliberating incidents must be looked at, as it had affected so many races this season.

Thoughts on the British Grand Prix

I would have been under the impression that the new developments to the Silverstone track, most notably the Club straight, would have created more overtaking opportunities than we had seen last Sunday. Despite a lack of a fight for the lead which we had expected, the British Grand Prix was still a reasonably good race.

The first lap gave us plenty to talk about, especially Sebastian Vettel’s and Felipe Massa’s punctures. Regarding Vettel’s incident, I don’t think that either driver was at much fault, although I feel that Sebastian should have been concentrating on Lewis more, as he was too busy fighting alongside Webber for the lead. As for Felipe, it was another racing incident, and I don’t think much more could be done about it.

Then we arrive at a surprisingly controversial incident – Alonso’s battle with Kubica. Put simply, both drivers were battling for position at the Vale corner, Kubica pushed Alonso wide, and Fernando was forced to cut the corner, overtaking the Renault in the process. However, he failed to give the position back, and was later dealt a drive-through penalty, as Kubica had already retired.

Fernando Alonso battles with Robert Kubica, and cuts the next corner

In my view, the penalty was well justified. It is perfectly fine to cut the corner to avoid a collision, but failing to hand the position back afterwards is blatant cheating, and Alonso should know this. These days, drivers should know better to just hand the position straight back, rather than keep going on and be ordered to hand it back later. But, since Kubica had retired, there was no driver to hand the position back to, so the only option for the stewards was a drive-through penalty.

Unfortunately, after this, the excitement died down, and didn’t ignite again until the safety car was deployed. This was for debris that came off Pedro de la Rosa’s rear wing. This safety car period allowed the field to get bunched up again, which helped the overtaking we saw in the second half of the race.

Sebastian Vettel’s recovery was hugely helped by this safety car, as he was able to leap back from 15th to 7th. However, this has been largely overshadowed by the controversy surrounding Red Bull favouring Sebastian over Mark, as the team removed an updated front wing from Mark’s car, and used it on Sebastian’s car for the race, leading many spectators to accuse Red Bull of bias towards Vettel.

This is the front wing that was taken from Mark Webber and given to Sebastian Vettel

At the end of it all, I was happy to see Mark Webber take the win, especially after the front wing switch. Apparently Webber’s mechanics started waving Mark’s front wing at the Vettel side of the pit after the race, which isn’t exactly sportsmanship at its best, but shows just how divisions in the Red Bull garage are growing. This could well be the reason why Red Bull fail to topple McLaren in the standings by season’s end.

The track itself, despite the poor slow corners added this year, are still an improvement in my opinion. We now have a great corner in the form of Abbey, and the Club straight gave us a few overtakes across the race. Also, the new 17-year deal in place means that the fans can enjoy Silverstone for years to come, which is certainly a change in outlook compared to last year.

Driver of the race – Mark Webber: Overcame bias from the team regarding the front wing, and still held the lead of the race fantastically well throughout. He said that he would not have signed a new deal until the end of 2011 if he knew how he would have been treated, so it’s great to see Webber fighting back.

Driver of the new teams – Jarno Trulli: Seeing as this high-speed track requires a good aerodynamic setup, nobody was expecting the new teams to challenge the midfield much, but Trulli did well to get past Kovalainen at the start, and held his advantage to the end.

Best rookie – Kamui Kobayashi: Got a better result here than in Valencia, but he was completely invisible in a solid drive to 6th from 12th on the grid. Nico Hulkenberg also deserves a mention, for getting his first points finish since Malaysia.

Best team – McLaren: This is about team results, and the crucial word in that first half of this sentence was team. Red Bull’s bias throws them straight out, so the best team in my opinion was McLaren, for overcoming massive setup difficulties in practice and qualifying to get 2nd and 4th places.

Least impressive – Michael Schumacher: He wasn’t too bad, but lacked the defensive skills to keep his rivals behind him. His only move against Sutil was the only one worth mentioning, as he got very close to pushing Adrian onto the grass. His only retaliation to Vettel overtaking him was to push him to the side as much as possible, which is perfectly legal, but I personally hate those kind of moves.

P.S: Did anyone watch the BBC F1 coverage after the race? I found myself singing along to Wonderwall when Lewis played it on the guitar, great fun

Ferrari were advised to allow Kubica through

FIA Race Director Charlie Whiting has revealed that he advised Ferrari 3 times to allow Robert Kubica through, after an overtaking incident with Fernando Alonso during the British Grand Prix. Alonso was handed a drive-through penalty during the race after he cut a corner battling with Kubica, overtook the Renault but failed to give the position back.

Ferrari were advised 3 times to hand the position back to Kubica

Under normal circumstances, after repeatedly advising Ferrari, this would have turned into an order to hand the position back, but since Kubica soon retired with unrelated mechanical issues, Alonso was unable to hand the position back. However, Charlie Whiting felt that Ferrari had plenty of time to instruct Alonso to let Kubica through, before the Renault retired.

Whiting claimed that, despite the penalty being issued many laps later, Ferrari were immidiately advised to hand the position back:

"We told Ferrari three times that in my opinion they should give the
position back to Kubica.

And we told them that immediately, right after the overtaking
manoeuvre. On the radio, I suggested to them that if they exchange
position again, there would be no need for the stewards to intervene.

But they didn't do that and on the third communication they said that
Kubica was by then too far back to let him regain the position.

It's not true at all that the stewards took too long to decide. For
us the facts were clear immediately: Alonso had gained an advantage
by cutting the track."

However, team principal Stefano Domenicali argued that, despite Alonso getting past Kubica, he didn’t gain an advantage:

"He tried to be aggressive to overtake, and we complained the 
drivers not to be aggressive and we complain about the lack of 
overtaking, and so at that stage, we felt as we normally do at 
that moment that we need to go on the radio with race control to 
check what is the position.

And normally, we take the right time to discuss with race control 
to make the judgement, and the moment when race control give us 
the instruction to give back the position to Robert, it was clear 
that Robert had already lost a lot of time - effectively he had a 
problem and he came back. That is the situation we analysed.

You can have a situation where immediately there is a possibility 
to give back the position to a driver if you feel that there is 
really an advantage that you gain. On our side we felt that was 
not the case otherwise we would have done it."

I was wondering after the race, why Ferrari didn’t complain loudly about the penalty being awarded, and this is clearly why. If Ferrari are pushing the rules that much just to gain one position, then they completely deserve any penalty that they get.

British Grand Prix in pictures

Apologies for the delay, but here are the pictures from last weekend’s British Grand Prix:

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British Grand Prix stats and facts

The British Grand Prix was Mark Webber’s 5th win of his career, and the 11th for Red Bull. Here are the stats and facts from the British Grand Prix:

• This was Sebastian Vettel’s 10th pole positions of his career, which is as much as Jochen Rindt.
• Mark Webber’s 5th career win puts him level with Michele Alboreto, Keke Rosberg, John Watson, Clay Regazzoni and Nino Farina. It was also his 150th Grand Prix.
• Fernando Alonso took the 15th fastest lap of his career, putting him in 16th place overall. He now has as many as Clay Regazzoni and Jackie Stewart.
• This was Red Bull’s 11th constructors’ win, putting them 1 ahead of Alfa Romeo, but well behind Cooper (16).
• Ferrari’s 14th and 15th places were the worst for the team since the 1978 French Grand Prix, when Gilles Villeneuve and Carlos Reutemann finished 12th and 18th respectively.
• In the lead-up to this race, there were rumours that the average lap speed record, currently held at Monza, could be broken. However, because the track turned out to be 10 metres shorter than planned, the average lap speed was actually higher than last year, leaving it 3rd overall in tracks with highest lap speed, behind Monza and Spa. The pole position speed in Silverstone this year was set by Sebastian Vettel, and it was 236.52kph, compared to 236.92kph last year.
• Robert Kubica retired yesterday, meaning that no driver has completed every single lap this year now. However, Kubica is now the only driver to have out-qualified his team-mate in every race so far.
• Red Bull have now led 433 of the 600 laps this year.
• Mark Webber has become the first driver this year to score 3 wins.
• Red Bull topped every single session this weekend, meaning Friday Practice 1 and 2, Saturday Morning practice (aka FP3), qualifying, and led every single lap of the race. Unfortunately there is no record of whether this has happened before in Formula 1 history.
• This is the first ever time that Red Bull have won twice at any track.
• Every single time that an Australian has won the British Grand Prix, they have gone on to win the world championship that year. This has happened in 1959, 1960, 1966 and 1980 previously.
• Bernd Maylander has now been deployed in the safety car 100 times, since he was hired in 2000. He deserves a present, surely Mercedes could afford him a road-legal SLS?

As usual, if you have spotted any more, do leave a comment!

Webber wins as Vettel struggles in Silverstone

Mark Webber took the win today at the British Grand Prix today, as pole sitter Sebastian Vettel suffered a puncture on the first lap. There was more controversy for Fernando Alonso, as the stewards dealt him a harsh drive-through penalty. Here is the full race report:

At the start, Vettel made a mistake with the clutch, and span his wheels too much. This allowed Mark Webber to get alongside him at the first corner, and he pushed Sebastian wide. Also, Lewis Hamilton’s front wing was seen to clip the back of Sebastian’s car. This caused a puncture on Vettel’s rear tyre, and he crawled back to the grid to the pits. He switched his tyres, and emerged at the back, 63 seconds down on the leaders. Felipe Massa also suffered a puncture on Lap 1, as a slow-starting Fernando Alonso came into contact with the other Ferrari.

Mark Webber leads, after Sebastian Vettel runs wide after contact with Hamilton

Robert Kubica made a fantastic start, getting up to third position by Lap 2. However, he was unable to keep the pace up, and fell into the clutches of 4th placed Nico Rosberg. Pedro de la Rosa’s good starting position was lost, as he fell to 11th, while Jarno Trulli was now 16th.

Massa was 20 seconds behind Sakon Yamamoto on Lap 5. But, by Lap 9, he had already got past the HRT driver. The Force India drivers were pressurising Trulli’s 16th place, but Jarno did well to hold them back. At the front, Mark Webber began to carve out a lead from Lewis Hamilton in 2nd.

Behind the front 2, a very large train of cars was beginning to form, from 3rd to 9th, with Robert Kubica, Nico Rosberg, Fernando Alonso, Rubens Barrichello, Michael Schumacher, Jenson Button and Kamui Kobayashi all in the mix. At the first stops, Ferrari tried to leapfrog both Rosberg and Kubica, but Nico managed to stay ahead and get past Kubica at the same time, after delaying their first stop.

On Lap 19, Alonso made a controversial move on Kubica. At the Vale corner, Kubica pushed Alonso, which forced Fernando to cut the corner. He emerged ahead of Kubica, but failed to give the position back. It took a long while before the stewards announced that they were investigating the incident. There was a twist, though, as Kubica retired into the pits on Lap 21, meaning that now no driver had completed every lap this season. Now, the stewards couldn’t instruct Alonso to give the position back.

Fernando Alonso and Robert Kubica battle at Vale

Fernando assumed the matter was over, and proceeded to overtake Jaime Alguersuari for 6th, and then hassling Rosberg for 5th. Meanwhile, Jenson Button, who started from 14th, had a longer first stint, and when he pitted, emerged in 5th place.

On Lap 28, the stewards finally handed out their penalty: a drive-through penalty for Fernando Alonso, for cutting a chicane and gaining an advantage. However, it got even worse for the Spaniard, as the safety car was deployed a lap later, for debris on the track. It came from Pedro de la Rosa’s rear wing, which also caused the retirement of the Sauber car.

This safety car prompted Hulkenberg to make his first stop on Lap 29, as he had started on the harder tyre, and had banked on a safety car, like Kamui Kobayashi did in Valencia. It only worked to an extent, and he emerged in 11th. The debris was cleared soon, and the safety car pitted on Lap 30. This is when Fernando Alonso served his penalty.

The safety car gave a chance to Sebastian Vettel for some points. He was in recovery mode after his first lap puncture, and was now lying in 15th place, and was elevated to 14th after Alonso’s penalty. The bunched-up field gave him a chance to overtake them and get into the points. He, and Adrian Sutil, were the men on the attack. On Lap 34, Sutil dived down the inside of Michael Schumacher, and although he was squeezed a bit, got past for 7th place.

Sebastian Vettel was on fire, getting up to 11th place by Lap 37, and now harassing Vitaly Petrov for position. Ahead of the Russian was Nico Hulkenberg and Michael Schumacher, so points were definitely on the cards. Vettel got past Petrov and Hulkenberg within 2 laps, and muscled his way past Schumacher 2 laps later, getting him up to 8th.

Felipe Massa, despite being in 13th place, was still pushing hard, and spun at Club corner, flat-spotting his tyres. He pitted for a new set, but caught his team out, and lost even more time.

Within another 2 laps, Vettel was all over the back of Sutil, but the Force India’s straight line speed kept the Red Bull behind. Meanwhile, Fernando Alonso was caught up in a battle with the other Force India, Vitantonio Liuzzi. With 3 laps to go, Fernando finally got past, but got tagged by Liuzzi as he overtook, and was forced to pit again for repairs. Vettel finally got past Sutil with only 2 laps to go.

While all of this went on, Mark Webber was having a fantastic race keeping Lewis Hamilton well at bay, and he crossed the line first, with Lewis 2nd and Nico Rosberg hanging on against Jenson Button to take the final posium spot. Jenson had the pace to get past, but unfortunately had to conserve fuel near the end. Rubens Barrichello and Kamui Kobayashi impressed with 5th and 6th, Sebastian Vettel was 7th ahead of Adrian Sutil, and Michael Schumacher and Nico Hulkenberg finished off the top 10.

Mark Webber celebrates after winning the British Grand Prix

The Ferraris languished in 14th and 15th after their dismal afternoon, but oddly enough didn’t complain much about the stewards’ decision on Fernando Alonso. However, there wasn’t much focus on Ferrari, as much as Mark Webber. He had overcome the rumoured favouritism on Saturday, when the team gave Vettel a new front wing and left Mark in the cold. However, Mark wasn’t going to forget quickly about this, ending his race with a short message to the team:

“Not bad for a number 2 driver”.

The standings have been updated, you can view them here.

British Grand Prix qualifying in pictures

Sebastian Vettel took pole position today, which was Red Bull’s 9th of the season. Here are the pictures from today’s racing:

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Liuzzi given 5-place penalty for impeding Hulkenberg

Force India’s Vitantonio Liuzzi has recieved a 5-place penalty for the British Grand Prix, after being deemed by the stewards to have held up Nico Hulkenberg in Q2 in qualifying. At the Becketts corner, Liuzzi was too slow ahead of Nico, and also moved across slightly just before the corner.

This means that Liuzzi will drop 5 places, from 15th to 20th on the grid. The penalty was issued because blue flags were waving as Liuzzi exited the pits, into the path of Hulkenberg.