As they did in the rain at China, Red Bull drivers Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber finished one-two in the Formula One Santander British Grand Prix at Silverstone, beating the Brawns in the dry as convincingly as they did in the wet in China.
Sebastian Vettel, who started on the pole, was simply uncatchable, driving away from the field, while behind him, teammate Mark Webber opened up a huge gap over the first Brawn car of Ruben Barrichello. Sebastian Vettel drove the fastest lap of all the cars on the course on every lap of the first 30, except one lap where Webber went faster.
Vettel, at 21, is the youngest driver to win the British Grand Prix.
“The start was very important, then in the first stint I tried to push as hard as I could to pull away and make a gap which I knew would be crucial,’ Vettel said after the race.
“The second stint wasn’t easy at all. I had a lot of traffic and a lot of lapped cars at that stage and they were battling each other, so it was quite tricky.
“This is what I was dreaming of when I saw the first grands prix here in Silverstone in the era of (Nigel) Mansell, so it is kind of unreal now to think I am here and I have made it. I am very, very pleased with the result.”
[Note: Nigel Mansell is the most successful British Formula One driver, with 31 victories in his career, 1980-1992.]
Series leader Jenson Button, hoping to win in front of his home crowd, spent the race fighting high-speed understeer, unable to enter the top five. ”The car feels like it’s skating,“ he complained to his crew. On the whole a very uncharacteristic day for Brawn, which had won effortlessly in most of the previous races.
Red Bull was the only team to really nail the set-up in qualifying. Several teams—including Brawn—complained that they couldn’t get good tire temperature—they couldn’t find the right balance of wing, shocks and wheel angle to get the tires really working.
The Red Bull cars were certainly the class of the field. Vettel led Weber by fifteen seconds at the end; Weber led Barrichello by 26 seconds. The Brawn driver was not even in the hunt.
With ten laps to go, Button came in for softer-compound tires, hoping the extra grip would give him an advantage as other cars, using older, harder tires. However, he lost three places in the pits, and the tires did not give him enough of an edge to get anything back. On the softer tires, the Brawn came to life, and it seemed Button might at least get into the top five, but there simply wasn’t enough time.
Felipe Massa brought his Ferrari home in fourth place, while Nico Rosberg gave Williams-Toyota some much need points, finishing fifth,
On lap 34, Sebastien Bourdais rammed Heikki Kovalainen while trying a pass. It seemed Bourdais simply misjudged, and stuck his right front wing into Kovalainen’s left rear tire. Both cars had to retire.
Defending champion Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes-McLaren had a miserable drive in front of his home crowd, finish sixteenth, one lap down—the worst finish of his career.
Button retained a twenty-three point lead in the drivers’ championship, but the championship, which had seemed a sure thing for Button, was now within reach of the Red Bull drivers.
The next race in the series will be the German Grand Prix at Nürburgring, on July 12.
| 2009 Formula 1 Santander British Grand Prix | |||||||
| Pos | No | Driver | Team | Laps | Time/Retired | Grid | Pts |
| 1 | 15 | 60 | 1:22:49.328 | 1 | 10 | ||
| 2 | 14 | 60 | +15.1 secs | 3 | 8 | ||
| 3 | 23 | 60 | +41.1 secs | 2 | 6 | ||
| 4 | 3 | 60 | +45.0 secs | 11 | 5 | ||
| 5 | 16 | 60 | +45.9 secs | 7 | 4 | ||
| 6 | 22 | 60 | +46.2 secs | 6 | 3 | ||
| 7 | 9 | 60 | +68.3 secs | 4 | 2 | ||
| 8 | 4 | 60 | +69.6 secs | 9 | 1 | ||
| 9 | 10 | 60 | +69.8 secs | 9 | |||
| 10 | 21 | 60 | +71.5 secs | 16 | |||
| 11 | 17 | 60 | +74.0 secs | 5 | |||
| 12 | 8 | 59 | +1 Lap | 14 | |||
| 13 | 5 | 59 | +1 Lap | 12 | |||
| 14 | 7 | 59 | +1 Lap | 10 | |||
| 15 | 6 | 59 | +1 Lap | 15 | |||
| 16 | 1 | 59 | +1 Lap | 18 | |||
| 17 | 20 | 59 | +1 Lap | 20 | |||
| 18 | 12 | 59 | +1 Lap | 19 | |||
| Ret | 11 | 37 | Accident damage | 17 | |||
| Ret | 2 | 36 | Accident damage | 13 | |||
| Championship Points—Driver |
| Championship Points—Team | ||||
| 01 | Jenson Button | 64 |
| 01 | Brawn-Mercedes | 105 |
| 02 | Rubens Barrichello | 41 |
| 02 | RBR-Renault | 74.5 |
| 03 | Sebastian Vettel | 39 |
| 03 | Toyota | 34.5 |
| 04 | Mark Webber | 35.5 |
| 04 | Ferrari | 26 |
| 05 | Jarno Trulli | 21.5 |
| 05 | Williams-Toyota | 15.5 |
| 06 | Felipe Massa | 16 |
| 06 | McLaren-Mercedes | 13 |
| 07 | Nico Rosberg | 15.5 |
| 07 | Renault | 11 |
| 08 | Timo Glock | 13 |
| 08 | BMW Sauber | 8 |
| 09 | Fernando Alonso | 11 |
| 09 | STR-Ferrari | 5 |
| 10 | Kimi Räikkönen | 10 |
| 10 | Force India-Mercedes | 0 |
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