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I must have been to the British GP meeting at Silverstone a dozen or more times, the first time being in 1973, the year of the Scheckter shunt. Since then I've done it most ways, including being helicoptered into the Formula One Paddock Club as a "guest" of McLaren and been part of a team in one of the support races; operating the pit board in F3 Qualifying from the Benetton F1 pit in '96 was a bit special. In the early years though, before such privileges, we quickly learned to go to Friday qualifying. It was less crowded, better value for money and you got to see the ridiculous, like the Life W12 and the Coloni Subaru, as well as the sublime, like Aytron Senna on qualifying tyres. When BlackOrange, creators of this website, kindly offered some tickets which included hospitality with GP2 competitors Team Trust Arden, fellow website contributor Tony Cotton and I elected to go on Friday once again, even though now there is no qualifying of course. Mindful of traffic nightmares of the past, we set off from Wolverhampton at 6.00am in Tony's Morgan. By 7.05 am we were broken down on the hard shoulder near Coventry. Although the Morgan has only done 8,000 miles, the cambelt had expired through old age, 20 years proving to be a few too many. Breakdown cover having gone the way of cambelt changing, we used the roadside SOS phone. Half an hour later a friendly bloke in a brand-spanking new wrecker appeared and returned us to Wolverhampton. Into the Golf and by 10.30 am we were inside Silverstone - there was just no traffic! This was also true at the end of the day, multiple entry points, lots of traffic marshals, a one-way system and above all, improvements to the roads infrastructure seemingly having banished the nightmares of the past, though I have no idea what it was like on Saturday or Sunday. Having finally got it right after 60 years, it was particularly ironic to hear that very day that Silverstone has lost the GP to Donington from 2010. Except that I'm sure it hasn't. It seems that there is no single investor ready to stump up the £100m required to upgrade the circuit, and even if there was, how could the circuit's appalling access be improved in time? They would have to limit it to about 10,000 spectators! This saga is only just beginning. Nearly all will have forgotten 1999 when Nicola Foulston won the deal to host the GP at Brands Hatch but it proved impossible to organise, so the GP stayed in Northants, but Bernie insists there is no way this will happen again. We think he should seek to return it to its original home - Brooklands, after all, it is close to London. Now there's a challenge Sir! Back at sunny Slirosne - for so it was. We were met by Deborah from Team Trust Arden, and escorted to the outer paddock where the GP2 teams were situated and shown into the hospitality unit which had nice food and friendly staff. It also caters for the teams, so was full of drivers and mechanics. Whereas once I would have known most of the Formula 2 drivers, I'm ashamed to say that now I only knew one GP2 - Bruno Senna. Tony knew another, Mike Conway having crashed into him at a Silverstone general test day some years ago. However we didn't see him, so a possible ugly incident was averted. A trained Ninja Accountant armed with a purple biro is to be greatly feared.... Tony observed that there seems to be a "standard" racing driver girlfriend; minor variations in trim colour, wheelbase and accent, but basically the same tipo! (Sadly no pics - fear of arrest). One thing I had quite forgotten is how many self-lovers there seem to be in a GP paddock of any sort. The Arden cars qualified 12th and 24th, so we quietly said our thank-yous and goodbyes and tip-toed away. However Sebastian Buemi did finish fourth in the race on Saturday. We had enjoyed watching the GP2 cars, but of course the F1 cars are still the best. They are spectacular, even more so with the removal of traction control, the rear ends of some dancing as they swooped through Bridge into Priory. Here, there was a surprising variety of lines, some a car's width inside the white line on the outside, some straddling it by half-a-car's width. Funnily enough it was a change in tactics from the latter to the former that caused Lewis Hamilton to fire his McLaren off the road in Q3. Under immense pressure he had been overdriving and managed to qualify only fourth. I don't know if it was because I'd seen the cars live again, but back in front of the TV I enjoyed qualifying more than for a long time. It was certainly a thrilling conclusion as Kovalainen, Raikkonen, Webber and finally Kovalainen swept across the line to take P1 - the Finn ending up with a huge half a second margin over Webber, who claimed Red Bull's first front-row position. This would turn out to be a "glory lap" as he was first to pit. He also managed an opening lap spin - check out the cute spinning symbol on the FIA lap chart. I don't rate Webber, never have, never will, but he will be back with Red Bull next year, unlike his venerable team mate David Coulthard who had announced his retirement at the end of this season [at last! - Ed.]. I won't miss him, but I'm sure Winston D'Arcy will as he's been an easy target for so many years. There are rumours that Webber's team mate next season may be Fernando Alonso, but it seems more likely to be Sebastian Vettel who did very well to qualify his Toro Rosso eighth, this suggests that the Adrian Newey designed base Red Bull kit car is not too bad. Raikkonen ended up third for Ferrari with Championship leader Massa way down in ninth, a rear wheel having stuck on at a critical moment. Qualifying had been interesting, but seemed likely to lack its usual vital significance as rain threatened on the morrow. Sure enough come race day it was wet, inter wet wet, but not full wet wet. Hamilton made a brilliant start and leapt into second then tried to force his way past his team mate in Copse to take the lead. Kovy wasn't having any, the two cars touched and he stayed in front (briefly). Massa started as he meant to go on with a spin on lap one, his first of what most consider to be five spins, though the FIA lap chart shows only three. Whatever, it only seemed like he had to breath on the throttle pedal to be round and once he aquaplaned off on the straight. He came home dead last and lapped twice. He's been generally lambasted for the drive but I don't think he could be that bad, but no other explanation has been forthcoming so far. Hamilton soon swept past Kovalainen into the lead at Stowe. He came from so far back that I'm sure Kovy let him past, but Lewis was so much faster it was the only sensible course. Kovalainen soon spun, which let Raikkonen up into second and he was closing up on Hamilton. Then came the first pit-stops, where, with rain forecast imminently, Ferrari inexplicably chose to leave Kimi on the same set of tyres. McLaren fitted Hamilton's car with new inters, he won the pit-lane drag to stay in front of Kimi - thank you and goodnight. It rained on and off throughout the rest of the race and Hamilton turned in a virtuoso display of wet-weather driving, which some have likened to Senna's performance at Donington in 1993. I don't know about that, but at one time he was FOUR SECONDS a lap quicker than anyone else on similar tyres. He lapped everyone up to and including Raikkonen who came home fourth after an off. Ferrari got the strategy wrong but their former tactical maestro got it right. Under Ross Brawn's direction, Rubens Barrichello was the only driver to be have the full wets fitted, at one time he was NINE SECONDS a lap quicker than all but Hamilton. This also begs the question as to why others did not use the full wets. He finished third for Honda and would have been second had the refueling equipment not failed to do its stuff in one of his stops. Apart from Hamilton, who was in a class of his own, Nick Heidfeld was the driver of the meeting. He qualified fifth and finished second, pulling off some lovely passes, a couple of them taking two cars in one move! For once, he overshadowed his team-mate who qualified tenth and spun into retirement. Kovalainen struggled home fifth with Alonso sixth, despite being passed by his young team-mate at one point, who then chucked it off. Nakajima delivered another notable drive into the points where his more highly-touted team-mate and much more experienced drivers failed. These included Jenson Button and David Coulthard, who tangled, ironically enough, with Sebastian Vettel on lap 1, both retiring. This was a good and exciting race, with a simply mesmeric performance by Lewis Hamilton, but, without wishing to be churlish, one outstanding performance dependant on extraordinary talent does not a Championship make. To mere armchair enthusiasts it looked a brilliant intuitive victory, reliant on "feel" if you will, rather than an applied victory achieved through hard work and intellect as well as skill. Schuey could do both and Hamilton has some way to go yet before he matches him. Also, for once, the McLaren team made fewer mistakes than Scuderia Ferrari and it's not us saying this. Stefano Domenicali said (below) that Kimi could have won this race; this we doubt, but If they keep their heads then we're sure they will emerge victorious again this year.
Click here to return to the Ferrari Happenings page.
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