Vettel crushes Silverstone opposition

Date published : 21 Jun 2009 - 14:35:14

Sebastian Vettel utterly dominated the British Grand Prix to take the first dry-weather victory of his Formula 1 career and Red Bull Racing s second ever 1-2 to keep his, and the team's, title hopes alive.Having blown his chances of a victory two weeks ago in Turkey after making an error on the opening lap from pole-position, the 21-year-old German made no mistake this time and capitalised on RBR s new-found superiority to disappear into the distance to end Jenson Button and Brawn's winning streak.With title leader Button's difficult home weekend culminating in only sixth place, Vettel's second win of the season reduces his deficit to the Briton to 25 points.Indeed Button's overall points lead is now slightly trimmed to 23 after Rubens Barrichello salvaged a podium for Brawn in third.Vettel's team-mate Mark Webber's race was compromised after he failed to get past Barrichello on the opening lap and by the time he did so at the first round of pit stops, Vettel was long gone and he had to settle for his third second place of the year.Ferrari claimed an unexpectedly strong result with Felipe Massa in fourth after the Brazilian used fuel strategy and strong race pace to climb from 11th on the grid, while Nico Rosberg took fifth for Williams for the second straight race.Button had a largely miserable afternoon, dropping three places to ninth on the opening lap and then struggling to make any headway.But the points leader claimed a potentially crucial two extra points after leapfrogging Jarno Trulli and Kimi Raikkonen with a late final stop. At the start, Vettel seemed to get away solidly but nevertheless made sure Barrichello wasn t going to attack him going into Stowe by moving across to the right to cover any advances from the Brazilian.The Ferraris, meanwhile, took advantage of the fact they are the only cars with KERS by catapulting off the line.Raikkonen in particular really hooked things up from ninth to take four cars via a daring move down the outside on the edge of the grass, slotting into fifth behind Kazuki Nakajima (Williams) through the fast right-hander.All this was bad news for Button who, although having no problems getting away off the line, got boxed in below a slow-starting Trulli directly ahead and fell behind Raikkonen, Rosberg and Massa.With the latter two carrying more fuel than his Brawn, it was a nightmare scenario but he only had to wait a lap to move back up a position after Massa ran wide at Stowe.Team-mate Barrichello needed a similar error from Vettel after failing to get past the heavier fuelled Red Bull at the start, but the race-leader was in no mood to sacrifice his big chance of keeping his title hopes alive.The 21-year-old German was simply sensational over the first stint, invariably a second a lap faster than the Silverstone specialist, indeed the whole field.By the end of lap two he was already 2.5s clear, three laps later it was 5.2s and that jaw-dropping margin of superiority saw him almost 11 seconds clear after 10 laps.The sister car of Webber, meanwhile, having failed to beat Barrichello off the line, was unable to unlock the RB5 s massive undoubted advantage tucked up as he was behind the Brawn, running in its turbulent air under a second back.He was finally released when Barrichello, now over 20s adrift of Vettel, headed for service and a switch from soft, to hard, tyres on lap 19.This was no the Australian s moment to push if he wasn t have to have his already frustrating weekend wrecked even more and, although he only had a lap s more worth of fuel to make the difference, he duly responded.After a quick in-lap was followed by a perfect service from his RBR mechanics, he trundled down the 50mph pit lane as Barrichello was flying out of Woodcote and down towards Stowe.Webber had just done enough though to create a Red Bull 1-2  and it really was just as he exited the pit lane exit on the exit of Stowe he got ahead of Barrichello by a hair s breath, then held it together through the single-file Becketts complex and down the Hangar Straight to head off in what he probably knew was a forlorn pursuit of his team-mate.Indeed after Vettel pitted a lap later for an equally trouble-free stop, he returned to the track with a 22s advantage over Webber and the race all but in his pocket.And while Webber easily pulled away from Barrichello, the Brazilian was about to come under attack from the runners behind after the opening pit stops had helped shuffle the order.As expected, Nakajima was the first to pit on lap 15 and may have assumed his error-free first stint running in fifth may have at the very least solidly kept him in the points positions however the reality turned out to be very different.First Raikkonen moved ahead of him after taking to the pit lane a lap later, but the former champion was then jumped in turn by both Rosberg and Trulli as the pair, along with Button, pitted together two laps later.So with the Williams man now leading that pack on the track, ahead of Trulli, Raikkonen, Button, the unfortunate Nakajima found himself out of the points.Indeed he eventually found himself ninth as Massa, not having let his second-lap slip fluster him, had stealthily kept the cars ahead in sight and then produced his ace card having the luxury of starting on a heavier fuel load after only qualifying 11th to turn his weekend around.Showing more of the kind of speed that Ferrari had been searching for all weekend, the Brazilian moved up to second on the road while the cars ahead peeled off into the pits and, after heading for the pit lane on lap 23, came out behind Rosberg in fifth.With Webber now joining the dominant Vettel in the distance, the battle for the final podium position now turned out to be the race s most intriguing tussle.Dropping like a stone from Webber, Barrichello seemed to be struggling even more on the harder compound and increasingly fell into the clutches of both Rosberg and Massa.Barrichello s lack of pace backed the Williams into the Ferrari meaning the trio ran within two seconds of each other for much of the second stint and, with overtaking so difficult at Silverstone, the fight looked set to be decided by the timing of their second stops.Massa s race engineer Rob Smedley told his driver over the radio that all he had to do was keep within two and a half seconds of the Williams to claim fourth and that is exactly how it to play out. With Rosberg first in for fuel on lap 44, Massa successfully jumped him by pitting a lap later and now was left to hope that he could even claim a first podium of the year.His fine drive, however, didn t quite end with that reward as Barrichello, running two laps longer, actually comfortably re-emerged from his stop with third in the bag.  At this stage this would have been enough for Barrichello to claw a handy five points back on Button in the title chase, but his team-mate also benefited from a longer final stint than his rivals to recover his starting position of sixth.Having at one stage even looked in a danger of dropping out of the points such was his problems with grip the Brawn struggling to warm its tyres in the cool conditions staying out four and six laps respectively longer than Trulli and Raikkonen gave him three points. Indeed frustratingly for him his car suddenly came alive on his final new set of soft tyres, but he ran out of laps and had to settle for a close sixth behind Massa and Rosberg.Trulli and Raikkonen s topsy-turvy afternoons eventually ended with seventh and eighth places respectively, the latter Ferrari just holding off the other Toyota of Timo Glock.While Red Bull s dominance largely made for a processional afternoon at the front, there were some exciting duels towards the back of the field involving several of the sport s biggest name drivers who were no doubt taking out their frustration on their unexpected 2009 plights.Central to many of the battles were former two-time champion Fernando Alonso (the Renault driver having made a disastrous start from 10th) and reigning title winner Lewis Hamilton.But while their wheel-to-wheel battles may have been fun, the pair will take little encouragement from their weekends.Indeed, for grim statistical reading, Alonso s 14th place represents the Spaniard s worst race classification since he finished 16th in a Minardi at Silverstone in his 2001 debut year, while Hamilton 16th place is the worst result of his 43-race career.Home hero Hamilton tried everything he could to make up for McLaren's shocking lack of downforce, pulling off impressive moves on both BMW's Nick Heidfeld and Alonso during the afternoon, but a later spin at Club was more indicative of his miserable home weekend.British Grand Prix result - 60 laps 1.  VETTEL       Red Bull        2.  WEBBER       Red Bull      +15.1s3.  BARRICHELLO  Brawn         +41.1s4.  MASSA        Ferrari       +45.0s5.  ROSBERG      Williams      +45.9s6.  BUTTON       Brawn         +46.2s7.  TRULLI       Toyota        +68.3s8.  RAIKKONEN    Ferrari       +69.6s9.  GLOCK        Toyota        +69.8s10. FISICHELLA   Force India   +71.5s11. NAKAJIMA     Williams      +74.0s12. PIQUET       Renault       +1 lap13. KUBICA       BMW           +1 lap14. ALONSO       Renault       +1 lap15. HEIDFELD     BMW           +1 lap16. HAMILTON     McLaren       +1 lap17. SUTIL        Force India   +1 lap18. BUEMI        Toro Rosso    +1 lapR.  BOURDAIS     Toro Rosso    +23 lapsR.  KOVALAINEN   McLaren       +24 laps