nicolachew

We all can't deny that the British Grand Prix which ended about 2 hours ago was gruelling, heart-stopping and intense, in stark contrast with the Valencia Grand Prix 2 weeks ago, which was relatively monotonous. This one, however, proved to be a "Silverstone Classic" as they call it, with all the narrow overtaking manoeuvres, the crash-outs and the pit stop blunders.

The start of every race never fails to cause someone to grip their seat with anticipation and nervousness as the 5 red lights illuminate. This one was no exception. A spectacular overtake by Sebastian Vettel on Mark Webber the moment the race officially began, and he was well past Webber even before the pack of cars made it to turn 1. Fernando Alonso also attempted to jump Webber and go into P2 by going on the outside of Webber, but this wasn't enough and he had to settle for P3 for the moment. Jenson Button momentarily overtook Felipe Massa, but Massa was quick to regain it. Lewis Hamilton jumped from 10th on the grid to 5th, overtaking both compatriots Button and Paul di Resta.

In lap 9, a collision between Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi and Michael Schumacher was the start of the end to Kobayashi's race, and Mercedes' Michael Schumacher seemed to perform a repeat of what happened 2 weeks ago in Valencia (I think) - the need for a nose cone replacement. The collsion caused Kobayashi to spin on track, but fortunately other collisions which could have happened simultaneously were avoided. Schumacher had to make an early pit stop to replace his front wing, and this pushed him all the way down from 10th to 17th.

But Kobayashi's series of unfortunate incidents had only just begun. In lap 13 after diving into the pits, his pit crew let him off a tad too early, and the Japanese driver ended up driving side-by-side with Pastor Maldonado, who was about to pit. Kobayashi's car became entangled with another team's wires/ropes/pipes/tubes and this gave him a stop/go penalty for an unsafe exit out of the pits.

Lap 17 was when Michael Schumacher was sent to the "naughty boy's corner", also known as the stop/go penalty he too received for causing a collision with Kobayashi which was probably, entirely his fault.

Lap 28 saw the end of Force India rookie Paul di Resta's ride to glory after a messed up pit stop where his pit crew apparently brought out the wrong set of tyres! What's more, in his frenzy to regain track position, he collided with Sebastien Buemi and damaged his own front wing as well as Buemi's front tyre, forcing the latter to retire from the race and having to dive back into the pits to replace his front wing.

This lap also saw the crucial turning point of the track positions of the front-runners, Vettel, Alonso and Hamilton in particular. Then race leader Sebastian Vettel pitted at the same time as Fernando Alonso who was P2, but disaster struck when Vettel was held back for a much longer time than he should have, letting Alonso cruise his way to the pit exit and claim P1. Vettel then exited the pit lane and fell behind Lewis Hamilton in P3.