2012 British Grand Prix: Webber Wins at Silverstone

The 2012 British Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on 8 July 2012 at Silverstone Circuit in England. It was the ninth round of the season and the 63rd time the event had counted towards the world championship. Mark Webber won for Red Bull, passing Fernando Alonso late in the race to take the lead.

What was the background to the weekend?

Jean-Eric Vergne was given a ten-place grid penalty after causing an avoidable collision with Heikki Kovalainen at the previous race in Valencia. Kamui Kobayashi took a five-place penalty for an avoidable collision with Felipe Massa at the same event, so both drivers started well down the order.

Caterham and Marussia both brought significant updates to their cars. Caterham's changes were made to the CT-01 chassis, while Marussia described its upgrade as its first proper windtunnel-generated update, having moved away from a purely computational approach at the start of the year.

The weekend was overshadowed by a serious accident involving the Marussia test driver Maria de Villota. She was testing an upgraded MR01 in a straight-line aerodynamic test at Duxford Aerodrome in the week before the race. She was removed from the car with life-threatening injuries, including skull fractures and the loss of her right eye.

Webber passed Alonso for the lead with three laps to run and took his ninth and final career victory.

Which tyres did the teams use?

Pirelli brought the same pairing it had used at the 2011 British Grand Prix. The silver-banded hard compound served as the harder prime tyre, and the yellow-banded soft compound was the softer option tyre. Teams had planned to test an experimental hard compound during the first practice session, with a view to introducing it later in the season.

Wet conditions made that test impossible in first practice. Teams were left to rely on their wet and intermediate tyres as the weather changed through the weekend.

How did the practice sessions go?

Romain Grosjean was fastest in the wet first session, ahead of Daniel Ricciardo and Lewis Hamilton. Fernando Alonso and the two Force Indias of Paul di Resta and Jules Bianchi did not set lap times in the difficult conditions. Dani Clos took over Narain Karthikeyan's HRT for the first session, and Valtteri Bottas drove the Williams that Bruno Senna normally used.

The second session was washed out. Hamilton still set the fastest time, ahead of Kamui Kobayashi and Michael Schumacher, while Grosjean chose not to set a time at all. Bruno Senna brought out a red flag for a ten-minute stoppage after he hit standing water at Becketts and crashed heavily into the barriers. Alonso also spun into the wall late in the session.

The third session was dry, but the threat of rain kept the teams busy. Charles Pic stopped on track twice, and Alonso finished the session as the fastest driver overall. The teams had lost a lot of running on the Friday, so they pushed hard to make up for it.

How did the wet qualifying session unfold?

Qualifying began in the wet, with more rain on the way, and a queue of cars formed at the end of the pit lane before the session started. Many drivers were told to keep going with their flying laps, even when they felt impeded by a slower car, because the track was changing quickly and a fast lap was still possible.

Jenson Button was eliminated in eighteenth place after he could not find a clear stretch of track. His final lap would have been fast enough to avoid elimination by more than a second and a half, but a spin by Timo Glock on the main straight brought out yellow flags. Button backed off, and he was knocked out. Vitaly Petrov out-qualified Heikki Kovalainen, and both Caterhams started eighteenth and nineteenth after penalties.

Rain returned ahead of the second part of qualifying, and the session was red-flagged with just over six minutes left after four cars spun within a minute. The stoppage lasted ninety-two minutes. When the session restarted, drivers had time for only one set of flying laps and had to choose between intermediate and wet tyres. Sergio Perez chose the intermediates, which proved to be the wrong call, and he finished the session slowest.

Who took pole position?

Alonso and Massa quickly locked out the front row in the final segment. Late laps from Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel then put the Red Bulls first and second on the timesheets. Massa could not improve and finished fifth, while Schumacher pushed Webber off pole. Webber took it back on his next lap, but Alonso took it from him on the Spaniard's final lap of the session.

Kimi Raikkonen finished sixth in the top ten, ahead of Pastor Maldonado and Lewis Hamilton. Nico Hulkenberg was ninth but dropped to fourteenth after taking a five-place penalty for a gearbox change. Webber, who had briefly held pole, lined up second.

How did the race begin?

Vitaly Petrov's Caterham had an engine failure on the way to the grid, and it was forced back to the pits and retired before the race had begun. When the lights went out, Alonso kept the lead into the first corner, with Webber and Schumacher following him through in their starting places.

Vettel lost places to Massa and Raikkonen early on, but he got past the Finn again quickly. Paul di Resta, who was in tenth at the time, was caught out at the start of the Wellington Straight, when his right rear tyre made contact with Romain Grosjean's front wing and punctured. He spun and retired from the damage on the following lap.

Grosjean's front wing was impaired, and it was costing him places. He pitted on the third lap to replace it and change his tyres, and he later recovered to finish sixth.

What decided the race in the closing laps?

Late in the race Perez and Maldonado collided at Brooklands, at the end of the Wellington Straight. Maldonado tried to pass on the inside under braking, while Perez defended the inside line. Maldonado's front wing clipped Perez's car and sent both into a spin. Perez retired from the race, and Maldonado made an unscheduled stop to repair his front wing. He had already pitted a lap earlier for new tyres, so the stop cost him badly, and he eventually finished sixteenth.

At the start of the fiftieth lap Webber was closing on Alonso, with Vettel close behind his teammate in third. Webber was faster than Alonso because Alonso's tyres were more worn than his own. With three laps to go, he was within a second of Alonso's car, which made him eligible to use DRS in the zone on the Wellington Straight. Alonso knew he was slower, so he took the inside line as Webber passed him for the lead. Alonso tried to fight back over the next few corners, and Vettel began to close on the leading pair.

Who else scored points?

The chequered flag fell with Webber in front. Alonso finished second, and Vettel did not have the pace to catch him, so he settled for third. Felipe Massa finished five seconds behind Vettel. Romain Grosjean recovered from the first-lap front-wing problem to finish sixth, behind his Lotus teammate Kimi Raikkonen.

Schumacher, Hamilton, Senna and Button took the remaining points, with Button finishing tenth. The table below sets out the main finishers and retirements.

What penalties and fines followed?

Maldonado received a fine of 10,000 euros for the incident with Perez. Kobayashi was fined 25,000 euros for a poorly controlled pit entry in which he knocked down some of his own crew. The stewards described that move as very dangerous and one with potentially serious implications.

The race also introduced a new podium and interview format. Jackie Stewart conducted the televised interview on the podium, so the drivers could speak to the crowd directly before going to the press conference. That style of interview was used in every race, with alternating hosts, until the 2018 Chinese Grand Prix.

What did the result mean for the championships?

After the race Alonso still led the Drivers' standings, but only by 13 points. Webber sat 16 points clear of Vettel, who had climbed past Hamilton into third on 100 points. Red Bull extended its lead in the Constructors' standings to 64 points.

Ferrari moved up from fourth to second, while McLaren dropped back and Lotus held third. All three of those teams remained within 10 points of each other, which kept the chase close at the top.

Why does this race stand out?

The win was Webber's ninth and final career Formula One victory. It was also the last win for an Australian driver until Daniel Ricciardo won the 2014 Canadian Grand Prix. Ricciardo had replaced Webber at Red Bull after the 2013 season.

Webber had won this race before, in 2010, so Silverstone gave him his second British victory. The rain-hit weekend showed how much a single wrong tyre call could cost a driver, as Perez discovered in qualifying.