Silverstone blog

Justin: Well, I think that was a race that certainly lived up to the history and legend of Silverstone.

There are plenty of talking points, the first of which has to be for me the Mark Webber/ Sebastian Vettel fight that effectively ended on the last lap with the order of "maintain the gap Mark". What we didn't know then of course was that Webber had received 4 or 5 messages over the previous few laps and he of course ignored all of them.

Team orders are no longer illegal of course and time and again in the past these rules have always stirred up mixed emotions for plenty of F1 fans. I won't deny that I stood firm with Ferrari last year when they wanted to get Fernando by Massa to go chase the leader, as he was clearly faster. That day it was confirmed that Massa had effectively become Ferrari number 2. Lets be clear though, Massa was a fair way back in the title race and hadn't looked anywhere near to Alonso's pace all year. In fact in 2010, I think the average qualifying distance between them was half a second. Anyway, I digress. (last year there was nothing between Vettel and Webber, by comparison). Webber hasn't suddenly become that much worse than Vettel, or Vettel that much better, its just Webber cannot seem to manage his tyres quite as well at the moment....anyway...I digress yet again!

We've seen many times in the past instances where people like DC have been asked to hold firm for a 1-2 finish behind team leader Hakkinnen. Again, I am digressing....

What bothers me, disgusts me...about Red Bull is that they sit there and judge other teams on not being able to contain 2 world class drivers, they scoff at teams that openly say to drivers "let him by for whatever reason", they claim to always let their drivers race.....then Horner sits in the BBC f1 forum and claims that if Webber were ahead and Vettel behind then nothing would change.....ok I'll believe that when I see it....Vettel would most likely throw a Lewis-esque tantrum then stuff it up Webber's exhaust like he did in Turkey last year. Vettel would not like one bit being asked not to race Webber if the situation on the last lap of Silverstone were reversed. And it's my honest belief that if Vettel were behind, the "powers that be" would have probably asked Mark to move over.

You have to wonder...I fear for Webber...is this the day he offically becomes number 2? They have already painted him as the bad guy, saying he ignored orders etc etc. Vettel says he doesnt see what the fuss is about....well, get on the other side of it then you will jackass.

Another last lap coming together saw Lewis and Massa chasing each other down and contact happening causing Felipe to run wide on the start/finish straight seeing Lewis finish 4th just ahead.

Make no mistake, the closing laps were absolutely barnstorming, with these two tussles going on.

Elsewhere, Fernando Alonso had all but driven into the distance by this point, 20 seconds down the road. That's his 27th win and puts him level with Jackie Stewart (my colleague should correct me if I'm wrong) in the all time GP winner's list.

People will of course say that Alonso was gifted the win by Vettel's shoddy pitstop...I wouldnt say gifted as Vettel was only 5 seconds ahead as they came into the pits at almost the same time anyway. On softs that were not up to temperature earlier on Fernando struggled and was passed by Lewis, but once his tyres got warmer Fernando pumped in fastest lap after fastest lap, and it was the same for much of the race. The guy just went faster and faster.

Martin Brundle said as much when Fernando went out ahead of Vettel. He'd have loved to have seen Fernando dicing with Vettel and overtaking him as the Ferrari looked the fastest out there all day in dry conditions.

Make no mistake, this was a supreme win by a driver at the top of his game.

Brundle also said it best when, in the forum, he offered to Horner that Red Bull bases itself, its whole image, on edge of the seat extreme sports, so why not let the guys race?

Horner kept coming back to saying "they'd end up in the wall"....based on past experience Vettel has always been the one taking Webber off from behind.

As it is, Vettel didn't prove anything to me at all today......faced with not leading from the front he couldnt race his way to the front at all.

Sound like I have an axe to grind with Red Bull?

I concur with my co-bloggers earlier remarks that Webber is the only guy singing from his hymn sheet. All that BS about the mechanics working hard and wanting 2 cars to finish....I'm sure the seperate teams of mechanics would love to beat the other lot within the team...espcially Webbers guys wanting to beat Vettel. Red Bullshit once again.

Good to see Lewis being nice to his team after a race for once....4th place eh? Deep down he probably isnt happy with that at all, I guess his PR people told him to say something nice for once.

Poor JB....he looked like a dark horse for a win at one point, until some idiot forgot to screw a nut in tight. Whoops.

I'm still fuming...but onto Germany we go.

Not sure about my co-bloggers 7 stop strategy.....