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Formula 1 British Grand Prix 2014

Saturday’s bizarre rain hit qualifying session saw both Ferrari’s and both Williams get knocked out in Q1. The session also threw another surprise as Lewis Hamilton aborted his final lap thinking it was too wet for anyone to beat his provisional pole time found himself down in sixth place because the final sector had dried enough for five drivers to jump ahead of him. Which included team mate Nico Rosberg who took pole position ahead of Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel and McLaren’s Jenson Button.

On race day; Rosberg drove off into the distance while Button jumped a place to second, McLaren team mate Kevin Magnussen moved upto third, Lewis Hamilton upto fourth while Vettel had a terrible start dropping back to fifth having to fend off the Force India of Nico Hulkenberg. Meanwhile Force India’s Sergio Perez got nerfed off the track at turn 1 by STR’s Jean-Eric Vergne.

But there was a huge crash to come; out of place Kimi Raikkonen went off track, hit a bump coming back on track, lost control of his Ferrari, hit the barrier on the right before bouncing back across the track, collecting Felipe Massa’s Williams and narrowly missing Max Chilton and Kamui Kobayashi.

Raikkonen’s crash brought out the safety car and later the red flag to collect debris and repair the damaged Armco barrier. After an hour’s delay, the race got restarted behind the safety car; Rosberg made his breakaway catching second placed Button napping; Williams’ Valteri Bottas who started 17th passed Daniil Kvyat for seventh place and Hamilton forced an error from rookie Magnussen to move upto third place on the restart lap. One lap later, Hamilton also passed Button for second.

Hamilton took victory cutting his World championship deficit to just four points after it was Rosberg’s turn to have reliability issues; being forced to retire his car on lap 29 with gearbox failure. Which ultimately robbed the fans of a grandstand finish with Hamilton closing down his German team mate. It has to be asked, how much of Hamilton closing on Rosberg was related to Rosberg’s gearbox issues? The German had been reporting issues for a few laps prior to the failure!

Driver of the day for me was Bottas who passed car after car on his way to claiming second place. I’m really happy to see Williams do well at their home grand prix especially after their troubles in practice and qualifying. Williams look like a genuine front runner this season, third for Bottas in Austria, second in Great Britain, will be be first in Germany?, personally I’d love to see it!

Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo impressed once again driving from eighth to third with what was effectively a one stop strategy; changing from the medium to hard tyres before the race restart on lap 2. While his four time World champion team mate finished fifth after starting second. Although Vettel did give us a great battle with Alonso for 13 laps before eventually taking fifth place away from the battle hardened Spaniard, which was as much as battle of words over the radio as anything!

McLaren’s Button had what has to be considered the best race of his season so far, finishing just 0.7 seconds away from a podium position; but the Briton equaled his best British grand prix finish of fourth in his first British grand prix without his father John Button by his side. Team mate Magnussen finished the race in seventh place, which counts as a decent team result for McLaren!

Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg, Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat and Jean-Eric Vergne round out the points scorers in eighth, ninth and tenth respectively. The most disappointed of those drivers has to be Hulkenberg who started the race in fourth place, seems the Force India just wasn’t hooked up today!

Williams have moved upto fourth place in the constructors championship ahead of Force India and just three points behind the powerhouse that is Ferrari, I’d absolutely love to see Williams take third position away from Ferrari, Williams deserve to have a good season after the past few years.

2014 British Grand Prix Results

1. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) 2:26:52.094
2. Valteri Bottas (Williams) +30.100
3. Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull) +46.400
4. Jenson Button (McLaren) +47.100
5. Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) +53.500
6. Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) +59.500
7. Kevin Magnussen (McLaren) +62.100
8. Nico Hulkenberg (Force India) +88.200
9. Daniil Kvyat (Toro Rosso) +88.800
10. Jean-Eric Vergne (Toro Rosso) +101.000

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