It was a shame to see it being dominated by a mind-blowing dull exhaust-blowing story, as the teams engineered themselves another bloody good row that most folks couldn't give a carbon fibre winglet about. It did afford Christian Horner the opportunity to practice his grumpy facial expression though, and good job too - he was going to need it again at the end of the race.
Narain Karthikeyan was unceremoniously dumped by Hispania prior to the weekend to allow Daniel Ricciardo into the seat, his masters at Red Bull clearly feeling that 4 of their drivers on the grid simply wasn't enough. Some money apparently headed HRT's way too. Williams also announced that they were teaming up with Renault once again, bringing back misty-eyed reminiscences from old-timers about their glory days in the 80's & 90's. To be honest, if it drags the team out of their current furrow, it'll be worth whatever they're being charged, no matter how big the price tag.
A damp qualifying day saw the track drying rapidly at the end of Q2, with even faster changes at the top of the timesheets. A sprinkling at the end of Q3 also meant no-one got to improve, and a fed-up Hamilton had the displeasure of knowing he'd be starting the race from 10th. Webber continued his great form at the British GP and bagged pole, with that speedy German chappie second. The Ferraris were next up, with Button lining up next to di Resta in a brilliant result for the wee fellow.
Come race day, the fab climate in the UK proved it was summer by raining before the race started, leaving a strangely wet patch at one end of the circuit, with a pretty much dry track at the other. Did anyone check for Bernie and a hosepipe, by the way? Perez proved it was slippery by spinning off on the way to the grid, and the whole field went for inters for the start.
Vettel scurried past Webber as the lights went out to take up his usual position at the front, whilst Lewis managed to avoid driving into anyone and made up a bunch of places, before forgetting where the track was and heading off for a Sunday drive.
Schumi continued his baffled-old-person efforts and clonked Kobayashi, losing his nose into the bargain, and became the first driver to try our slicks. A few laps later, and Jenson became the first of the front runners to do the same, pulling off a brilliant Buffalo Gals* overtake of Massa.
Michael bagged himself a stop/go penalty for a Kamui attack, before Kobayashi got one himself after an unsafe release that saw him ensuring he won't be driving for Force India any time soon, tearing half the air hoses off their pit-stop rig as he ploughed into the path of another car. A couple of laps later and his smoking car decided to call it a day.
di Resta had one of the days when random weirdness makes life difficult, when a routine pitsop saw his crew standing looking at his car going "bugger me - I though the other bloke was coming in", resulting in a hasty rummage around in the garage to find his tyres.
Vettel was having one of those days too, as a lengthy stop caused by a sticking rear wheel saw him lose his lead to Alonso and Hamilton.
Red Bull atoned by pitting Vettel when he got caught behind Lewis, giving him one place back, and JB lost out to the pit-lane wheel gremlin on lap 40 when the team let him go before remembering they hadn't actually attached one of his wheels. Jenson managed to incorrectly point out on the radio which side it was, which would seem to be a somewhat fundamental requirement of a racing driver, but hey. We forgive him, right? He has a Union Jack on his helmet.
Hamilton got an unwelcome bit of news later in the race, when the radio equivalent of that accusatory yellow light in your car told him to save fuel. Very forward-thinking of McLaren to go green earlier than the other teams and save fuel, I thought. Or maybe the cost of Lewis's bling has left them a bit short of cash this week, and they couldn't manage a complete fill-up. As Lewis struggled to save fuel and go fast at the same time, Massa chased him down rapidly and Webber flew past.
With a few laps left, Alonso was happily in front, but Webber was hounding Vettel, with even a tetchy call from Horner to hold stations falling on deaf ears. Massa and Hamilton scrapped furiously over the last few corners with the Brazilian losing out to Lewis by metres after a wild collision and some off-track action.
It turned out post-race that Webber had been asked repeatedly to hold position, thus allowing Christian's Mr Grumpypants face a second outing of the afternoon. About that contract for next year, Mark...
So, a fabulous race, in a fabulous place, won by Alonso and not Vettel, with good scrapping and a dollop of political shenanigans and some good old British slapstick. Ahhhhhhh - lovely.
And did you spot the ultimate British moment at the end? As the cars went over the line, one of the marshals emptied the remains of his flask of tea into camera shot. Made me proud, it did...
(Eric Clapton helped out with this report, as did "Layla".)
(*round the outside)
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