Alonso returns to victories in Silverstone

Ferrari's drought of wins has been brought to an end today after Fernando Alonso won today's British Grand Prix in Silverstone. This was the Scuderia's first win since last year's Korean Grand Prix in October.

The two Red Bulls had to settle for the lowest steps of the podium, with Vettel having to defend his runner-up position from Vettel in the final laps of the race. Vettel dominated most of the race but a slow second stop made him lose the lead to Alonso.

On the British side, none of the drivers managed to finish in the podium positions. Hamilton finished in fourth after a great effort in the beginning of the race, while his team-mate Jenson Button had to retire because of a technical mistake during pit stop.

At the start of the race the track conditions were half-wet/half-dry conditions, with the area around the original start/finish area sodden but the new grid relatively dry by comparison. After the lights went out Vettel got ahead of his team-mate and got clear as his team-mate held the challenge of Alonso.

Hamilton produced most of the action at the start with the British recomposing himself from a disappointing qualifying. In a few laps he climbed into fifth place and started attacking Felipe Massa's position.

As the track continue to get dryer as the laps succeeded Michael Schumacher to be the first to male a move on soft tyres after he made contact with Kamui Kobayashi Sauber on lap 10 and forced to pit for a new front wing on his Mercedes.

With the German making immediatly the fastest lap of the race everyone decided to come into the pits and exchange to dry tyres. Webber, Alonso and Hamilton choose lap 12 to come in, while Vettel and Massa came in on the next lap.

With the later stop, Vettel saw his advantage to Webber cut to 3.3 seconds and because his tyres weren't warm the advantage continued to fall. When the advantage went down to 1.5 seconds Vettel was able to increase his speed and maintained a control distance to his team-mate.

Having struggled in the beginning with the temperature of his tyres, Alonso lost the train of the front runners and ended up being overtaken by Hamilton. But after the tyres finally came together with the Ferrari the Spaniard started flying and after overtaking the Brit, both drivers started the chase to the Red Bulls.

The two drivers made the sufficient effort which gave the opportunity to get ahead of both Red Bulls when they went in to the pits and had slow stops, leaving Alonso in the lead, followed by Hamilton.

When he saw himself in the lead Alonso entered in cruise speed getting away from all the competition, leaving Hamilton fighting with the Red Bulls. The Spaniard stormed away with a pace one second faster per lap.

The McLaren Mercedes of Hamilton remained in the front of both Red Bulls until the third stop. Not being able to pass the Brit, Vettel opted to make an early move and pitted first getting an the enough advantage in one lap to overtake Hamitlon.

At this time Alonso was already safe in the lead and Vettel wasn't able to catch the Spaniard. Behind the front runners Hamilton started losing pace but managed to secure fourth position despite the attacks from Felipe Massa.

Button was in fifth until the final pit stop. His last visit meant the end of his race as his right front wheel wasn't properly attached. The Brit had to park and retire in the pit exit.

Thanks to a two-stop strategy, Nico Rosberg was sixth ahead of Sauber's Sergio Pérez and Renault's Nick Heidfeld. Michael Schumacher was able to recover from a tumulted race and finished ninth followed by Toro Rosso's Jaime Alguersuari, Adrian Sutil's Force India and Vitaly Petrov in the other Renault.