That was an absolute classic!

Good racing yesterday with a number of the quicker drivers finding themselves further back in the pack and having to fight their way forward, e.g. Button, Alonso and Vettel.
Button's 14th to 4th drive was not bad!
Alonso could have done better, but really misjudged that "cutting the corner" incident; I would have expected his team to advise him to let Kubica pass him again to avoid the stop and go. But hey, the Spanish already have enough to be happy about

 

I bet he'd been thinking of just what to say for the last 20 laps of the race. Christian Horner's response was quite biting back to him though ... "maybe now you can finally smile" (or something like that).

I come down on the side of the team on this one. It wasn't "Webber's front wing" that they took off. The newer wing had been tried on both cars during practice so they could both have a go with it. It's just a coincidence that Webber had it on his car on the last practice before qualifying. When the decision had to be made of who gets the newer and better wing for actual qualifying and the race, it was a coin toss. One of them was going to be disappointed. I bet if Mark Webber had been given it, he wouldn't have been saying "how unfair to Seb that he can't have it, this is favouritism". Of course not. The team could only give it to one of them and they made the completely sensible choice to give it to the one with the most points and the most chance of winning the championship at that time. If such a decision is forced on them at Hockenheim in two weeks, it would go Webbers way I'm sure.

He shouldn't have even needed the team to advise him of that. He's been racing long enough and seen enough penalties given to do it himself. Yes he had no choice to avoid a crash to cut the corner, but in doing so he gained a place and had to give it back. It was Alonso that put himself in that position. You can do that going into any corner - put yourself into the part of the driving line where your opponent will come towards you and you have to therefore cut the corner. Kubica said, as he was limping back to the pits, that his team had told him that Alonso was being told to let him past. So that was the first penalty that had been imposed on Alonso. When they realized that was no longer possible, they had to go to the next possible penalty which was a drive-thru. The expectation being that he'd lose a couple of places from that. I think that once the safety car came out, the stewards should have rethunk their penalty as it would have put Alonso almost at the back due to the cars all being bunched up now. They could have said we'll knock 10 seconds (or 2 places) off your final result instead. They're allowed to change their mind - they'd already done it once.

 

1) Not correct, both cars had the new front wing, but Vettel's was broken in the final practice. The team made the decision to remove the new wing from Webber's car and give it to Vettel. The second part of your statement is the reason RedBull gave for the switch.

2) +1 Spot on.

 

Ohhhhh. I wasn't aware of that. Wasn't paying enough attention during the qualifying show I'd understood that they only brought one of the new types to try out. With this new info, I'm more convinced that Webber had more reason to be upset. It still makes logical sense they made the decision they did, but Webber certainly had very good reason to be pissed. Yep, I'd have made that "second driver" comment too in his position

 

Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton hit the road to Silverstone in a VW Bus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8_2P...embedded#at=88

 

Amusing take on the Red Bull vs Webber controversy. The site appears to be a UK version of theonion.com.

 

LMAO very amusing

 

An interesting article with more behind the scenes info about the silverstone race and how Brawn was nearly sold to Lotus last year.

 

Singapore in Formula 1 style

 

Senna is back, now it's Chandhok's turn.