Webber Wins Silverstone

After a rain soaked weekend, the sun finally shone on the Silverstone track as Mark Webber came out victorious, becoming the second driver to win two races this season. Pole sitter, Fernando Alonso, looked relatively comfortable throughout the race until the final tyre selection ultimately prevented the Spaniard from winning his third race.

The news before the race was that Vitaly Petrov's Caterham was unable to make it out onto the track, so we  inevitably began the race with 23-drivers. From the start, the only real mover was Felipe Massa who overtook Sebastian Vettel to claim fourth. The drama from the start saw Paul Di Resta suffer a rear puncture via contact from Jean Grosjean. The Scot did make it back to the pits, but the damage was too great and the Force India was finally retired on lap four.

Massa has been continuing his case to remain a Ferrari driver with his vast improvement in recent races. The Brazilian managed to overtake Michael Schumacher to move into third on lap-11, before the opening pit stop phase got under way.

The only collision of the race was between Pastor Maldonado and Sergio Perez on lap-12. The Mexican looked to have overtaken the Williams before Maldonado slid around the corner, picking up the Sauber on the way. Perez was unable to continue the race whereas the Venezuelan managed to continue despite suffering a puncture. After the incident, Perez spoke of his disappointment but urged the stewards to review Maldonado's driving style. The Mexican stated that the rest of the drivers feel his driving is too dangerous and needs to be tones down. Perez's most damning words were 'Maldonado has no respect for other drivers'.

The only time Alonso was behind in the race before he lost it was when Lewis Hamilton didn't take his pit-stop until late. Hamilton's tyres eventually lost its speed, allowing Alonso to retake the lead on lap-19 with Hamilton finally pitting a couple of laps later.

Hamilton would finish eighth but managed to get up to sixth on lap-24 after the pit-stop phase was well and truly completed. Kimi Raikkonen over-took Schumacher to gain fifth before the McLaren followed the Finn two corners later. The decline began on lap-35 when a much quicker Grosjean claimed eighth and, following the next phase of pit-stops, Schumacher took seventh from Hamilton on lap-46.

Alonso began the race on the hard tyres before transferring to the soft compound during the final pit-stop. Webber, on the other hand, began the race on soft tyres before using the harder compound on both of his stops. This was ultimately the better strategy as the Australian was able to overtake the Ferrari on lap-48 to all but secure his race victory.

Bruno Senna would finish ninth courtesy of over-taking Nico Hulkenberg on the last lap. This unsettled the German, who end up going off the track, allowing Jenson Button to steal the final point on offer. Race result:

1.Webber (Red Bull), 2.Alonso (Ferrari), 3.Vettel (Red Bull), 4.Massa (Ferrari), 5.Raikkonen (Lotus), 6.Grosjean (Lotus), 7.Schumacher (Mercedes), 8.Hamilton (McLaren), 9.Senna (Williams), 10.Button (McLaren), 11.Kobayashi (Sauber), 12.Hulkenberg (Force India), 13.Ricciardo (Toro Rosso), 14.Vergne (Toro Rosso), 15.Rosberg (Mercedes), 16.Maldonado (Williams), 17.Kovalainen (Caterham), 18.Glock (Marussia), 19.Pic (Marussia), 20.De La Rosa (HRT), 21.Karthikeyan (HRT) DNF: Di Resta (Force India), Perez (Sauber) DNS: Petrov (Caterham)