Given the hugely dramatic and variable season we’re having, it may be foolish to suggest that the first hint of a pattern is beginning to emerge. But that seemed to be the way of it when Mark Webber became only the second man to win two races in 2012, his victory in the British Grand Prix, coupled with second place for Fernando Alonso, beginning to edge this battling pair ahead in the championship.
Alonso is the other two-time winner, having taken a maximum score a fortnight ago in the European GP at Valencia. The point is that Silverstone and Valencia are like chalk and cheese and yet Alonso’s Ferrari was quick on both types of track.
The same applied to Webber’s Red Bull following major changes to the rear of the RB8 going into the Spanish race. Webber may ‘only’ have finished fourth that weekend but he had come from 19th on the grid and team-mate Sebastian Vettel had comfortably led the Valencia race until the alternator overheated. According to Webber, the car was even better through the fast sweeps of Silverstone, a fact substantiated by Vettel finishing third at Silverstone.
The actual order at the end of the British Grand Prix was decided by tyre strategy as teams tried to second-guess the conditions. With Friday having been washed out by enough rain to give the promoters an organisational nightmare in the grass car parks, there was little information available to the drivers and engineers as they prepared for a 52-lap race run in the dry.
Track temperature of 31 degrees C was in stark contrast to an average of 15 degrees experienced on Friday and Saturday. In addition, with no rubber having been laid down, the track evolved very quickly during the race. The subsequent dilemma was summed up by different strategies for Alonso and Webber.
Having taken pole from Webber by just 0,05s and the choice of dry tyre being free (due to qualifying having been run in the wet), Alonso opted to start on the Hard tyre while Webber went for the Soft. With both drivers making two stops, it boiled down to one using Soft tyres at the beginning and the other at the end. And no one had the first clue about which would work best. Welcome to F1 in 2012.
Initially, it seemed Ferrari had got it right. Alonso pulled out a five-second lead and continued to stay at the front as the pit stops played out. The crucial point came when he finally switched to the Soft with 15 laps to run. Webber had stopped four laps earlier for his second set of Hard tyres, the gap between them being 4,4 seconds. Would Alonso’s Softs be good enough?
The answer quickly became clear as Webber began to close the gap. With seven laps to go, he was right with the Ferrari. Three laps later he was in the lead despite a typically stout defence by Alonso.
Having enjoyed being on the top step in Valencia, Alonso looked thoughtful as he accepted second best on the Silverstone podium.
“If Mark was leading the championship, I would be worried about losing another seven points,” said Alonso. “But this weekend has been fantastic for us. We left Valencia with an emotional win and a lot of points in our pocket. We arrived at Silverstone, a completely different circuit, not knowing how the car would perform. We are again bringing home more points than we probably expected. If you had told us we would leave here with 18 points, I think we would have been very happy.”
That was more than could be said for McLaren as they had trouble getting either tyre to work and came away with just five points in total for Lewis Hamilton (8th) and Jenson Button (10th), McLaren’s disappointment compounded by slipping to fourth in the Constructors’ Championship behind Lotus.
Another part of an emerging pattern, perhaps? McLaren will be hoping to put that right in Germany in two weeks.
Provisional Results (British GP 2012)
1. Webber Red Bull-Renault
2. Alonso Ferrari
3. Vettel Red Bull-Renault
4. Massa Ferrari
5. Raikkonen Lotus-Renault
6. Grosjean Lotus-Renault
7. Schumacher Mercedes
8. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes
9. Senna Williams-Renault
10. Button McLaren-Mercedes