A picture paints a thousand words....
Still, won't stop me, will it? Well, what a cracking afternoon's entertainment. The BBC's coverage of the British Grand Prix was spot on (thanks guys) and I especially enjoyed the pub quiz. To quote Al Murray's pub landlord when offering darts to Button "You any good at Arrows? Nah, neither was Damon Hill".
An interesting story had bubbled up overnight about the Red Bull wing issue. In short, they had two new front wings, Vettel's broke, so they took the one off Webber's car and gave it to Seb. For a guy feeling the pressure about wether his team are favouring the other side of the garage, this must have brought down the red mist for Mark. Luckily, he's better at controlling his temper than Alonso, and he took it on that big Aussie chin of his and decided the best way to answer that was to go out there and win it.
Straight away at the start he made it abundantly clear that he wasn't going to take any crap from his team-mate and avoided a swerve by Seb before muscling him out of the way at the first corner. Vettel then brushed Hamilton's from wing and copped a puncture. Pole to the back on the first lap. They weren't the only team-mates scrapping though, as Alonso and Massa came together and Felipe joined Seb at the back after his own flat sent him limping to the pits. Hamilton and Webber traded fastest laps at the front with Mark ahead, and a hot-headed Alonso tried to get past Bob Kubica, only to find he was out of track when Mr K firmly closed the door on him. Rather than do the sensible thing and let Kubica back through, he ploughed on, risking a penalty. It came, but by this time Kubica was out of the race so the FIA went for a drive-through penalty instead. Unfortunately for the grumpy one in red, the Safety Car came out to allow for debris from De La Rosa's collapsing rear wing to be cleared, thus he had to take the penaly afterwards... by which time a Sunday drive down the pitlane involved the entire field passing him. I'm guessing he wasn't happy, as not long afterwards he curtly told the team "no more radio".
Towards the end some good scraps built up: Liuzzi & Alonso, who was attempting to get back through the field - didn't work out very well though, and Fernando wound up with a puncture. I wouldn't want to be on his flight back home. Rosberg and Button (in a brilliant recovery from 14th on the grid) slugged it out for 3rd, with Nico the winner in this fight, whilst Sutil and a fast-moving Vettel had a ding-dong for 7th, with Seb finally getting the place.
Webber's comments on the radio after taking the flag spoke volumes: "Not bad for a Number Two driver", whilst Christian Horner asked him "Can you manage a smile now?".
Barrichello showed Williams' improving form for 5th (and then became the fastest F1 driver in a reasonably priced car on Top Gear later), with another good drive from Kobayashi netting him 6th. What was he doing the first half of the season then?! Sutil, Schumacher & Hulkenberg rounded out the points finishers, meaning both Williams and Mercedes drivers finished in the points. Ferrari? 14th and 15th...
If Mark Webber needed to answer his critics and show that he can rise to the occasion in difficult circumstances, he did a fair dinkum job at Silverstone.
(NP tonight. Er... Bon Jovi. Sorry.)
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