2013 British Grand Prix – Pirelli punctures overshadow Rosberg’s triumph

By Simon Wright

Once again, it was Pirelli who made the headlines and for the wrong reasons at this afternoon’s British Grand Prix, won in grand style by Nico Rosberg.

The under pressure Italian tyre manufacturer has been summoned to an urgent FIA meeting on Wednesday to explain the latest spate of tyre failures that turned the national Grand Prix from a tense and enjoyable day to one of total farce and lunacy.

Lewis Hamilton's victory chances ended early on with this tyre blowout

There were no fewer than five tyre failures in the race, the most on any raceday since Michelin suffered three blowouts during the 2004 Belgian Grand Prix.  Tyres exploded on the cars of early race leader Lewis Hamilton (pictured), Felipe Massa, Jean-Eric Vergne, Esteban Gutierrez and Sergio Perez for the second time this weekend.  Later tests showed all of the top three, plus world champion Sebastian Vettel all had severe cuts on their rubber which would have meant catastrophic failures but for emergency pitstops.

All failures were attributed on the rear tyres, apart from Gutierrez, who suffered a front tyre blowout.  The most terrifying failure was Perez’s explosion in the final six laps, with championship contender Fernando Alonso extremely fortunate to avoid a monumental smash, as he missed the slowing Mexican’s McLaren by millimetres.  Kimi Raikkonen also was pelted with tyre rubber debris from behind Vergne’s Toro Rosso when his tyre blew up on lap 16 on the Hangar Straight at some 300km/h.

Pirelli’s motorsport director is Paul Hembrey, and he is under huge pressure to react to the latest damaging blow for his company this season.  Pirelli have taken huge flak for producing tyres that have raised safety concerns, plus the recent tyre test with Mercedes GP in Barcelona which led to a breaking of sporting regulations and a slap on the wrist.

When cornered by Sky Sports F1 presenter and pit analyst Ted Kravitz after the race, Hembrey said: “Obviously today wasn’t foreseen – we’ve seen something new, a different type of problem.

“We’re currently performing our analysis.  We’ve got to go away and understand what’s happened.  When we’ve got the facts we can understand what’s happened and get to the core of the issue.  We take these things seriously and when we have the answers we’ll let you know.”

Hembrey had a meeting straight after the event with FIA president Jean Todt and race director Charlie Whiting, with accusations flying on whether the failures were being caused by the kerbs at the Northamptonshire circuit, debris in the shoulder of the compound or just total structural failures.

Alonso, who finished third has rubbished suggestions it was kerb involvement, saying: “I don’t think that the kerbs have any influence because I have been racing 12 years now in Silverstone and the kerbs they were never a problem.  So I don’t think that this year they were a problem.”

When discussing his near-miss with Perez, the usually ice cool Spaniard admitted: “A scary moment.  It was high-speed in the middle of the straight.

“I was committed to go to the right to do the move on the right of him and I was lucky because if I committed to do the move on the left maybe all these pieces of the tyre will arrive to me.  That’s something we don’t want to see but we don’t know the solution either, so it’s a question for Pirelli.”

The 31-year-old admitted he was lucky to finish on the podium after qualifying in a season low ninth place on Saturday.  He added; “Looking at the problems with tyres for some of the drivers, the drivers who didn’t have any problems have to feel lucky.

“I have mixed feelings.  I’m happy for the points because we reduced the gap a little in this race, but we saw this weekend that the pace is not good enough.  I trust the team.  There is a lot of work to do, but we are united.”

Social media interaction added to the fury aimed at Pirelli.  Dave Curtis tweeted: “Rubbish tyres have ruined F1 in 2013.  Might be nice to actually see drivers being able to race hard next year?  Sort it out #Pirelli #F1”

David Morgan also tweeted and said: “Great brand advertising for #Pirelli.  Bet they loved it today!”

Many drivers after the race claimed the incidents to be unacceptable, with Perez and Massa leading the calls for change.  The most vocal though was Hamilton, who voiced his concerns to BBC’s Lee McKenzie.

He strongly said: “The safety issue is the biggest concern.  It is just unacceptable.  We had that tyre test to develop and improve the tyre and stop that from happening, and after the test, they didn’t do anything about it. 

“I was thinking behind the Safety Car that it is only when someone gets hurt that someone is going to do something about it.”

The huge concerns about safety with the tyres overshadowed a fine drive from Rosberg, who might have benefited from luck, but was there to take the opportunity and claim his second win in three races.

The day started with bright hopes of a good Grand Prix, and with sunshine arriving in Northampton, the event had the ingredients to be a perfect day, so it was a real shame that despite some pulsating action in the closing laps, the event turned more into a joke than a real sporting contest of man and machine combined.

Before Hamilton’s tyre blowout on lap eight, things were going very well for the home favourite.  He had taken his first Silverstone pole position in six years with a belting lap on Saturday, and made a storming start to lead comfortably in the early stages.  Mercedes have improved on their race performance since their debacle at the Spanish Grand Prix in May and it was more than evident today.

Sebastian Vettel kept Hamilton honest, but had fallen three seconds behind and couldn’t seem to do much about him until fate played its part.  Hamilton was joined at the back of the field by Massa shortly afterwards after his puncture also came at turn four, pitching his Ferrari off the track.  Both were helped by the two Safety Cars that came about in the race, but they probably deserved this good fortune. 

Hamilton had a great dice with Paul di Resta in his fightback and eventually finished fourth, just 10 seconds shy of his team-mate.  Massa’s recovery to sixth was almost unnoticed, but also a good showing considering he only lined up 11^th after completing just 10 dry laps in free practice due to a crash and an engine change in FP3.

Vergne became the third victim of the new version of ‘Russian Roulette.’  The Frenchman was yet to pit and had moved upto sixth place during the first round of stops when his tyre let go in spectacular fashion, right infront of the two Lotus cars.  Both Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean did well to not get caught out, and Vergne did brilliantly to get his machinery under control approaching Stowe corner.  However, his race was totally ruined and he would later retire in the garage with serious damage to his floor and the aerodynamics.

All the debris now from flailing rubber led to a serious clear up of the track and so the Safety Car made its first lengthy appearance of the afternoon.  When it came in, the problems didn’t end there with Gutierrez suffering a failure on the left-front tyre as later confirmed by Sauber.  Perez was the final casualty of the day where safe tyres looked in very short supply.  He was running sixth and was accelerating up the gears from the Chapel complex when he had his second issue of the weekend after a similar rear failure at Copse on Saturday morning in practice.

That happened after the second Safety Car, deployed when Vettel slowed to a halt with 11 laps to go.  Although Rosberg made sure he could never relax, the race was being totally controlled by the German when he suffered a sudden gearbox issue with his usually bulletproof Red Bull exiting Stowe and heading for Club.  Despite desperately trying to find a gear that worked, there was no joy and he chalked up his first DNF since Monza last season.  Vettel believed fifth gear was the offending part that broke, although Christian Horner later confirmed transmission failure was to blame for the lack of drive.

Vettel’s cruel luck didn’t seem to bother the British fans, who seemed to enjoy booing him, as his actions from Malaysia earlier this season continue to win him no new followers.  Rosberg pitted under Safety Car conditions for a precautionary third pitstop after he reported of a severe vibration on one of his tyres.  Mark Webber also did the same, with the team spotting a severe tyre cut which meant another puncture was on the way, while Alonso and Vettel had to bring forward their first pitstops because of similar problems.

Rosberg survived his own tyre problems to record his third career triumph

On the restart, Rosberg pulled away from Raikkonen quickly, who didn’t pit for fresh rubber and suffered because of this.  Webber, who had fought back brilliantly from a horrendous start and contact with Grosjean at the start pulled off a brave and decisive pass at Copse for second place and quickly hunted down his former Williams team-mate.  The Aussie, who finally confirmed he was moving to Porsche’s sportscar programme on Thursday, as first revealed in China in April got to within 0.7 seconds, but Rosberg stood firm to claim his third career victory.  Nevertheless, this was Webber’s best result of the season and his fifth successive rostrum at the British Grand Prix.

Alonso had made a third pitstop and looked like a man possessed in the closing stages, overhauling Daniel Ricciardo, Adrian Sutil and Raikkonen to take the final spot on the podium.  Hamilton also passed a limping Raikkonen on the penultimate circuit to claim fourth, followed by Raikkonen and Massa.

Sutil ran as high as third for the majority of the afternoon, but some cautious Force India strategy cost him a potential podium finish.  Seventh was still a good result, but they probably missed a good opportunity to gain more points today.  It was a similar case at Toro Rosso for Ricciardo, who was eighth despite running in the top six for most of the day.  Di Resta was ninth from the back of the grid despite needing to change a front wing after contact with Nico Hulkenberg just after half-distance and Hulkenberg claimed Sauber’s first point in five races.

Williams just missed out on points in their 600^th Grand Prix event, with Pastor Maldonado 11^th and Valtteri Bottas in 12^th.  Jenson Button was a sitting target in the closing stages with tyres that had run out of grip.  He was a quiet and low-key 13^th in another race where Perez well and truly showed himself up.  Britain’s Max Chilton finished again for the eighth successive event, crossing the line in 17^th place.

There was a late threat to Rosberg’s win after the FIA investigated an incident where he was caught speeding under yellow flags.  However, the Mercedes man was given a fairer sanction of a reprimand and deservedly keeps his win. 

Mercedes might be turning into championship contenders with this result, and Red Bull should be worried.  They don’t want to have any more car breakdowns for the world champion.  

However, Formula One’s integrity for safety has to be called into question after another shameful day for the sport’s image throughout 2013.  With just five days until the German Grand Prix meeting begins at the Nurburgring, something has to be done and quickly to prevent more failures and eliminate the high danger element the sport possesses at the moment.

	2013 FORMULA ONE SANTANDER BRITISH   GRAND PRIX RESULT
Pos	Driver	Team	Laps	Time/Reason	Grid
1	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP	52	1hr 32min 59secs	2
2	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing Renault	52	+0.7secs	4
3	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	52	+7.1secs	9
4	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes GP	52	+7.7secs	1
5	Kimi Raikkonen	Lotus Renault	52	+11.2secs	8
6	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	52	+14.5secs	11
7	Adrian Sutil	Force India Mercedes	52	+16.3secs	6
8	Daniel Ricciardo	Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari	52	+16.5secs	5
9	Paul di Resta	Force India Mercedes	52	+17.9secs	22
10	Nico Hulkenberg	Sauber Ferrari	52	+19.7secs	14
11	Pastor Maldonado	Williams Renault	52	+21.1secs	15
12	Valtteri Bottas	Williams Renault	52	+25.0secs	17
13	Jenson Button	McLaren Mercedes	52	+25.9secs	10
14	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber Ferrari	52	+26.2secs	16
15	Charles Pic	Caterham Renault	52	+31.6secs	18
16	Jules Bianchi	Marussia Cosworth	52	+36.0secs	19
17	Max Chilton	Marussia Cosworth	52	+1min 07.6secs	20
18	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham Renault	52	+1min 07.7secs	21
19R	Romain Grosjean	Lotus Renault	51	Unknown Cause	7
20R	Sergio Perez	McLaren Mercedes	46	Tyre Explosion	13
R	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing Renault	41	Transmission	3
R	Jean-Eric Vergne	Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari	35	Aerodynamic Damage	12

Drivers’ Championship after 8 rounds: 1. Sebastian Vettel 132, 2. Fernando Alonso 111, 3. Kimi Raikkonen 98, 4. Lewis Hamilton 89, 5. Mark Webber 87, 6. Nico Rosberg 82, 7. Felipe Massa 57, 8. Paul di Resta 36, 9. Romain Grosjean 26, 10. Jenson Button 25, 11. Adrian Sutil 23, 12. Jean-Eric Vergne 13, 13. Sergio Perez 12, 14. Daniel Ricciardo 11, 15. Nico Hulkenberg 6

Constructors’ Championship after 8 rounds: 1. Red Bull Racing 219, 2. Mercedes GP 171, 3. Ferrari 168, 4. Lotus 124, 5. Force India 59, 6. McLaren 37, 7. Scuderia Toro Rosso 24, 8. Sauber 6

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