| 2012 British Grand Prix | |||||
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Race 9 of 20 in the2012 Formula One World Championship
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 Silverstone Circuit | |||||
| Race details | |||||
| Date | 8 July 2012 | ||||
| Official name | 2012 Formula 1 Santander British Grand Prix[1] | ||||
| Location | Silverstone Circuit, Northamptonshire andBuckinghamshire, England | ||||
| Course | Permanent racing facility | ||||
| Course length | 5.891 km (3.660 mi) | ||||
| Distance | 52 laps, 306.198 km (190.263 miles) | ||||
| Weather | Dry Air Temp 20 °C (68 °F)[2] Track Temp 31 °C (88 °F)[2] | ||||
| Attendance | 127,000 (Race Day)[3] | ||||
| Pole position | |||||
| Driver | Ferrari | ||||
| Time | 1:51.746 | ||||
| Fastest lap | |||||
| Driver |  Kimi Räikkönen | Lotus-Renault | |||
| Time | 1:34.661 on lap 50 | ||||
| Podium | |||||
| First | Red Bull-Renault | ||||
| Second | Ferrari | ||||
| Third | Red Bull-Renault | ||||
Lap leaders | |||||
The2012 British Grand Prix (formally the2012 Formula 1 Santander British Grand Prix)[1] was aFormula One motor race that took place at theSilverstone Circuit in Northamptonshire andBuckinghamshire, England on 8 July 2012.[4] It was the ninth round of the2012 Formula One season, the 63rd timethe event had been a round of the Formula One World Championship, and the 67th time it had been contested overall. The 52-lap race was won byRed Bull driverMark Webber, who took his second victory of the season. TheFerrari ofFernando Alonso, who started the race in pole position, finished 3.0 seconds behind Webber, in second. Webber's teammate,Sebastian Vettel, completed the podium by finishing in third position.
As a consequence of the race, Webber narrowed Alonso's lead in the drivers' standings to 13 points. Webber himself was 16 points ahead of Vettel, who had moved ahead ofLewis Hamilton into third in the standings on 100 points. Red Bull extended their lead in the constructors' standings to 64 points. Ferrari moved up from fourth place to second whilst McLaren did the reverse and Lotus stayed in third position. All three teams stayed within 10 points of each other.
This would prove to be Webber's 9th and final career F1 victory.[5] This was also the last victory for an Australian Formula One driver untilDaniel Ricciardo's victory in the2014 Canadian Grand Prix, Ricciardo having replaced Webber at Red Bull after the latter's retirement at the end of the2013 season.
Jean-Éric Vergne was given a ten-place grid penalty for the race after causing an avoidable collision withHeikki Kovalainen duringthe previous race.Kamui Kobayashi took a five-place grid penalty for the same offence, having caused an avoidable collision withFelipe Massa in Valencia.[6]
After out-qualifyingToro Rosso drivers Vergne andDaniel Ricciardo in Valencia,Caterham announced plans to bring several upgrades for theCT-01 chassis to the race.[7]Marussia joined Caterham in bringing significant updates to their car, which the Russian team described as their "first proper windtunnel-generated update"[8] since abandoning theircomputational fluid dynamics-only approach at the start of the 2012 season.[9] Test driverMaría de Villota was involved in a serious accident while carrying out a straight-line aerodynamic test of the upgradedMR01 chassis in the week preceding the race atDuxford Aerodrome.[10] She was removed from the car with life-threatening injuries, including skull fractures and the loss of her right eye.[11]
Like the2011 British Grand Prix, tyre supplier Pirelli brought its silver-banded hard compound tyre as the harder "prime" tyre and the yellow-banded soft compound tyre as the softer "option" tyre.[12]
Dani Clos replacedNarain Karthikeyan atHRT for the first practice session,[13] having previously driven the car at theSpanish Grand Prix.[14]Valtteri Bottas tookBruno Senna's seat atWilliams, whileJules Bianchi droveNico Hülkenberg's car forForce India for the duration of the session.[15]
The teams were due to test an "experimental" hard tyre compound developed byPirelli during the first free practice, with a view to introducing it as a racing tyre later in the season;[16] however, wet conditions made this impossible.[17]Romain Grosjean was the fastest driver in the first session, ahead ofDaniel Ricciardo andLewis Hamilton.Fernando Alonso and the Force Indias ofPaul di Resta and Jules Bianchi elected not to set lap times in the face of the difficult conditions.[15]
The second session was similarly washed out and saw limited running as teams tried to preserve their wet- and intermediate-compound tyres. Hamilton was fastest, leadingKamui Kobayashi andMichael Schumacher as Grosjean elected not to set a time.[18]Bruno Senna brought out a red flag that resulted in a ten-minute stop to the session when he hit a patch of standing water at Becketts, spinning and crashing heavily into the barriers. Fernando Alonso also encountered trouble, spinning and hitting the wall late in the session, but theFerrari driver was able to return to the pits.
The third and final session was declared dry, but was run under the threat of rain and saw plenty of activity as the teams pushed hard to make up for lost time running in the wet on Friday.Charles Pic stopped on the circuit after twenty minutes, forcing the temporary suspension of the session whilehis car was removed. Pic later returned to the circuit, but stopped once again, and his car was removed by marshalls without forcing the session to be stopped. Alonso ended the session fastest overall.[19]
Qualifying started in wet conditions, and with the threat of more rain on the way, a queue of cars formed at the end of pit lane in the minutes before the session began. Once out, many drivers were instructed by their teams to keep going with their flying laps, even if they felt they had been impeded by a slower car because the rapidly evolving nature of the circuit meant that they could still set a fast lap time.Jenson Button was eliminated in eighteenth position when he could not find clear track space. His final flying lap saw him set sector times that would have been fast enough to avoid elimination by over a second and a half, but a spin on the main straight byTimo Glock brought out yellow flags, prompting Button to back off, where he was duly eliminated.Vitaly Petrov out-qualified teammateHeikki Kovalainen for the second time in 2012, with the Caterhams starting in eighteenth and nineteenth once grid penalties had been applied. Despite his spin, Glock's fastest lap saw him start twentieth, ahead of both HRT drivers, withPedro de la Rosa once again out-qualifyingNarain Karthikeyan.Charles Pic failed to set a lap time within107% of the fastest time in the session, set bySebastian Vettel.
The weather delivered on its promise of more rain, inundating the circuit ahead of Q2. The session was red-flagged with just over six minutes remaining after four cars span off within the space of a minute, andSauber'sSergio Pérez at the top of the time sheets. The stoppage lasted for ninety-two minutes while race officials waited for the rain to stop and the circuit to clear. When the session re-opened, the seventeen drivers would have enough time left over for one set of flying laps, forcing them to choose between the intermediate and wet-weather compounds as the length of a lap in the wet meant that the drivers would not have enough time to pit and change tyres if they made the wrong choice. Pérez chose the intermediate compound which quickly proved to be the wrong choice as he rapidly plummeted down the order, and finished slowest. He would start the race fifteenth after penalties were applied.Paul di Resta's final lap gave him a provisional start in Q3, but he was eliminated in the final moments of the session and started eleventh.Kamui Kobayashi was twelfth, but dropped to seventeenth when his penalty from Valencia was applied.Nico Rosberg andDaniel Ricciardo finished thirteenth and fourteenth, ahead ofBruno Senna who admitted to being "too conservative" in qualifying.Jean-Éric Vergne qualified sixteenth, but was moved to the back of the grid once his penalty was applied.Romain Grosjean made it through to Q3, but spun at the end of the period at the Vale chicane, and took no further part in the session.
Q3 was fought between theFerraris,Red Bulls andMichael Schumacher'sMercedes.Fernando Alonso andFelipe Massa quickly locked out the front row of the grid, until late laps fromMark Webber andSebastian Vettel left the Red Bull cars first and second. Massa was unable to improve his lap time and finished fifth, while Schumacher pushed Webber off pole. Webber reclaimed it with his next lap, only to lose it in turn to Alonso on the Spaniard's final lap of the session.Kimi Räikkönen, the last driver to set a time, finished sixth, ahead ofPastor Maldonado andLewis Hamilton.Nico Hülkenberg was ninth, which became fourteenth when he took a five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change.
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An engine failure onVitaly Petrov's Caterham on his way round to the grid meant he had to return to the pits and retire the car before the race had even begun. When it did, however, it was polesitter Alonso who maintained his lead into the first corner. Webber and Schumacher followed him round in their same positions, but Vettel fell prey to Massa and Räikkönen, before quickly getting back past the Finn.Paul di Resta, in tenth place at the time, suffered a puncture as a result of his right rear tyre coming into contact withRomain Grosjean's front wing at the start of the Wellington straight. Di Resta spun and retired from the damage on the following lap whilst Grosjean pitted on the third lap to replace his front wing and change tyres after his impaired front wing was costing him places.
Later on in the race,Sergio Pérez andPastor Maldonado had an incident at Brooklands at the end of the Wellington Straight. Maldonado tried to overtake Pérez on the inside of the corner under braking, whilst Pérez was defending on the inside line Maldonado's front wing clipped Pérez's car and sent both of them into a spin, the result of this would be Pérez retiring from the race and Maldonado having to make an unscheduled pit stop to repair damage to his front wing. This would be a disaster for his strategy in the race because a lap earlier, he pitted for new tyres, Maldonado would later finish 16th in the race.
At the start of lap 50,Mark Webber was closing in on race leader Fernando Alonso, with Vettel shortly behind his teammate in 3rd place. Webber was faster than Alonso due to his tyres being worn more than Webber's, but then with 3 laps to go Webber was within a second of Alonso's car, this would mean he was eligible to use DRS in the allocated DRS zone on the Wellington Straight, this would give him extra speed. Alonso knew he was slower than Webber so he took the inside line as Webber passed Alonso for the lead of the race, Alonso tried to attack on him in the next few corners. Now Vettel would try and close up on Alonso.
When the chequered flag fell, Mark Webber won his second British Grand Prix, following his victory in2010. Alonso was 2nd, Vettel not having the pace to catch Alonso and remaining 3rd.Felipe Massa finished 5 seconds behind Vettel, Romain Grosjean recovered from the first lap incident to finish sixth, behind his teammateKimi Räikkönen. The other points scorers wereSchumacher,Hamilton,Senna, andJenson Button in 10th.
Pastor Maldonado received a€10,000 fine the incident withSergio Pérez.Kamui Kobayashi received a €25,000 fine for the pit-lane incident which was described by the stewards as a 'very dangerous move which had potentially serious implications'.
A new podium design and interview format was introduced at this Grand Prix; instead of Webber, Alonso, and Vettel proceeding to the interview room in the media centre,Jackie Stewart conducted the televised interview on the podium, allowing the drivers to address the crowd directly.[20] The drivers then proceeded to the interview room for the press conference with assembled media.[21] This form of post-race interviewing was used in every race, with alternating hosts, until the2018 Chinese Grand Prix.
Notes:
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| Previous race: 2012 European Grand Prix | FIA Formula One World Championship 2012 season | Next race: 2012 German Grand Prix |
| Previous race: 2011 British Grand Prix | British Grand Prix | Next race: 2013 British Grand Prix |
