Those were the words that Webber used on the pit-to-car radio after the race. Team boss, Christian Horner, responded with a “you can smile now, Mark”. It was a telling remark about where Webber’s emotions were at and further illustrates the growing ill-feeling within the team. Webber drove a dominant race with pace to spare whenever he needed it. His teammate, Sebastian Vettel, was relegated to the back of the field after a puncture in the first corner on the opening lap. He bounced back to 7th thanks to a fortunately timed safety car to cleanup some debris from de la Rosa’s Sauber’s rear wing. A man who had the opposite luck to Vettel was Alonso who was called in for a drive through penalty after illegally overtaking Kubica by cutting a corner. However, the timing of this penalty coincided with the safety car which completely ruined Alonso’s race. Kubica retired shortly after Alonso overtook him so although the penalty fit the crime, it was a harsh reality.
McLaren had a much better than expected weekend. They tried their new blown diffuser upgrade and found instability under breaking, a common drawback found when first implementing this configuration. They spent all of friday trying to make it work before making a call late on friday night to revert back to their pre-Silverstone package. This meant that they were back at square one in terms of setup and spend hours on the simulator back at base trying to catchup. They ended up finishing the race in 2nd and 4th which was a testament to the great starts both drivers had and the reliability of the McLaren package. Its race was much better than qualifying, a trend we have seen all year and this is what has enabled them to keep a lead in both championships.
So onto Hockenheim next, a circuit that is a shadow of its former self, but still has some entertaining sections and corners where overtaking is possible. Will Red Bull self destruct, will McLaren make their blown diffuser work, will Ferrari realise the potential they have been promising in the last two races, will Renault and Mercedes make the next step to join the top 3? All these questions and more will be answered in just over a week’s time.
