Sebastien Vettel Takes Dominant Victory at Silverstone

Sebastian Vettel stormed to his first dry-weather Formula One victory as Red Bull ended Jenson Button's run of success with an astoundingly dominant one-two in the British Grand Prix.

With Button only able to finish sixth, Vettel's victory, ahead of his teammate Mark Webber and Button's Brawn stablemate Rubens Barrichello, heavily suggested that this year's world championship might not be entirely settled yet.

Red Bull had looked totally unstoppable from the start of Friday's practice, and that dominance did not calm in the race. Vettel put recent poor performances behind him by controlling the grand prix from the outset—storming away from his heavier rivals at an astounding rate of knots in the first stint.

Consistently one second or more per lap quicker, he was over 20 seconds clear of the closely-matched Barrichello and Webber by the first stops.

While Vettel sauntered to his third career win, Webber completed Red Bull's perfect day by getting ahead of Barrichello as he emerged from his first pit stop, which he made a lap later than the Brazilian.

Barrichello then began to fall away from the Red Bulls, and eventually came under pressure from the lighter Nico Rosberg, representing Williams, and Felipe Massa from the Ferrari camp, although this threat then faded when Barrichello ran longer before his last stop and secured the final podium spot.

Massa had a good race to come through from 11th on the grid to fourth, joining the podium fight thanks to a very long first stint and then jumping ahead of Rosberg in the second pit sequence.

Button was never competitive in his home race, and he was stuck behind the slow-starting Jarno Trulli off the line. He completed the first lap in eighth and stayed there for most of the afternoon. Only by running longer at his last stop was he able to jump ahead of the Toyota and Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari.

Finally, at the end of the race Button found the pace he had been struggling to find and started storming up to the gearbox of Rosberg's Williams. The result means that Button now leads the world championship to Barrichello by 23 points and Vettel by 25.

Raikkonen barely managed to hold off Timo Glock's Toyota for the last point, with Giancarlo Fisichella hassling the two for the final point after Force India's most competitive performance to date.

The Italian veteran made a good start and managed to blast past Fernando Alonso and Robert Kubica when they ran wide at Stowe while battling with each other, and then held on to the top 10 pack for the rest of the race.

Kazuki Nakajima was in a strong fourth in the opening laps of the race, but early pit stops cost him dearly. He lost many places in each pit sequence and then finished a lowly 11th.

Fernando Alonso had a terrible race to 13th, losing substantial ground on the first lap, then spending the first stint trapped behind Nick Heidfeld's extremely slow BMW, which was dropping up to threes a lap to those ahead due to front wing damage.

Last year's winner Lewis Hamilton could only finish 16th, having had spirited battles with Alonso and a quick spin under braking for Club along the way.

Driver of the Day

You may think only one person deserves this award, but I'm going to award this to two drivers today.

The first is, quite obviously, Sebastien Vettel. Very rarely do you see someone completely obliterate everyone with such ease.

After Webber cleared Fisichella he did start to catch Vettel, even when Vettel was pushing, but it was not enough today.

The second driver to receive this award is Giancarlo Fisichella. He did what Fernando Alonso could not and passed Nick Heidfeld under racing conditions. He then managed to catch, and eventually pass, the Williams of Kazuki Nakajima. Then he held pace with Raikkonen and Glock in the final stint.

Fisichella was unbelievable today. He out-performed the car, and one must wonder where he would have finished if Sutil did not bring an end to Q1 yesterday, where Fisi was on for ninth.

T.V. Coverage Rating—10/10

The BBC have completely destroyed any lasting feeling that the ITV coverage was any better. The pit-stop demonstration was simply astonishing. Look on the BBC-F1 Web site for the "making of" video of that shoot.

Jake Humphrey showed just how good he is today. Words cannot describe my admiration for him. Lee McKenzie was easily the best looking girl in the crowd today, or at least the only girl worth staring at. Yes, I do mean staring.

Today I listened to the Radio 5 Live coverage, and it is nice not to have to listen to Jonathan Legard, but I did miss the insight of Martin Brundle.

David Croft and Anthony Davidson are the better combination by a long margin.

Race Verdict—7/10

Quite dull at times, but the fight between Alonso and Heidfeld kept us going for a while. Then the late charge from Button was enough to keep us going till the end. Vettel was in another world, at least in the first stint.

Good race today, but the regulations still have not done what was intended: provide overtaking.

Michael Griffin

Article originally posted by this author at The F1 Times.

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