By Brian Bielanski
(RacingWire) – Fernando Alonso, with a little help from a long pit stop by Sebastian Vettel, won the Grand Prix of Great Britain at Silverstone. It was Alonso's first victory of the year and the first victory for Ferrari in 2011.
After the Vettel's problem on his second pit stop Alonso had a 16 second lead that Vettel couldn't close.
As strong as Alonso was he isn't sure he could have passed Vettel on the track. Alonso said, “I think it is difficult to have any prediction of what could have happened without the problems of Sebastian. For sure more difficult and you need to overtake on the track and when you are talking about two or three-tenths different pace in favor of them or us it is not easy to overtake as we saw with the McLaren and for Sebastian it was the same when he tried to overtake Lewis. It is not easy to overtake so the pit-stop problems for them was a help.”
Vettel's teammate Mark Webber pressed him hard in the closing laps for the second step on the podium but couldn't passed the defending World Champion.
Webber's Red Bull team boss Christian Horner instructed him several times during the closing laps to maintain his gap to Vettel, an order Webber ignored.
“I am not fine with it,” Webber said of the team orders. “No. That's the answer to that. If Fernando retires on the last lap we are battling for the victory so I was fine until the end. Of course I ignored the team as I want to try and get another place. Seb was doing his best and I was doing my best. I don't want to crash with anyone, but that was it. I tried to do my best with the amount of conversation I had. One-way conversation obviously as I wasn't talking too much back. There was a lot of traffic coming to me, but I was still trying to do my best to pass the guy in front.”
McLaren's Jensen Button was running strong in second place when a mishap in pit lane ended his day on lap 39. Button left his pit before the right front wheel nut was secure. Button made it to the end of the pit lane where he retired.
Alonso's win was the on the 60th anniversary of Ferrari's first Formula One win. Jose Froilan Gonzales won the 1951 British Grand Prix at Silverstone in a Ferrari.
“It is a very special win,” said Alonso. “I think Silverstone is a special event for every driver competing in Formula One. We know the history of motorsport here in the UK so it is special grand prix. Also today I had the privilege to drive the Jose (Froilan Gonzalez's) car. It was the first Ferrari win in Formula One and this year it is 60 years ago that one Ferrari car won the first grand prix in Formula One. Today we won on the same circuit with the same passion, with the same group of people, working for this fantastic team. Every year competing in Formula One right from the beginning so this is the big thing about Ferrari. The passion, the victory and the love for competition so very happy to drive this car and achieve this success again.”
Louis Hamilton (McLaren) and Felipe Massa (Ferrari) rounded out the top five.
The final points paying positions went to Nico Rosberg (Mercedes), Sergio Perez (Sauber), Nick Heidfeld (Lotus Renault), Michael Schumacher (Mercedes) and Jaime Alguersuari (Toro Rosso).
The next race on the Formula One calendar is the German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring on July 24.
