At the British Grand Prix there was fresh controversy concerning Red Bull’s perceived favouritism towards German Sebastian Vettel. The German damaged his front wing in free practice and the team elected to take Mark Webber’s front wing and put it on Vettel’s car for the qualifying session leaving the Aussie using the previous specification front wing. Vettel qualified on pole position with Webber close behind but Webber incensed by having his upgraded front wing effectively stolen away from him stormed off the start line getting his nose ahead, Vettel tried to squeeze Webber into the wall but the Aussie was having none of it, holding his line exactly as he did in Turkey. Vettel fell back into the clutches of Hamilton and the two drivers touched which caused a puncture on Vettel’s right rear dropping him to the back of the grid. Mark Webber went on to win the race pumping in fast lap after fast lap to which Lewis Hamilton had no answer. Jenson Button started from 14th on the grid after a disastrous qualifying stating the car was “undriveable”. The Briton moved upto 8th with the first lap and finished the race in fourth place. Button could have challenged Nico Rosberg for the final podium spot but Button needed to conserve fuel to make it to the end of the race. Rubens Barrichello finished in a strong fifth place in his Williams, it seems that Williams are making big steps forward with Barrichello’s input. Kamui Kobayashi finished in sixth place at Silverstone to add to his seventh place at Valencia. The Japanese seems to be getting better and better as the season progresses, it’s great to see a successful Japanese driver in F1, it’s also great to see Sauber at the sharp end of the grid. Seventh through tenth places were taken up by Germans, Sebastian Vettel, Adrian Sutil, Michael Schumacher and Nico Hulkenberg. These results mean that Lewis Hamilton extended his championship lead over Jenson Button while Mark Webber leapfrogged team mate Vettel. As Red Bull said that Vettel was given Webber’s front wing because he was leading the Red Bull duo in the Championship, if something similar happens in Hockenheim, I wonder if Webber will get the new development part, somehow I doubt that will be the case as everything that has happened in the past six weeks points to Vettel being favourite within the Red Bull camp. If one of the Brits can’t win the championship this season, I want Mark Webber to win the championship, the Australian is every bit as good as Vettel in my opinion and at Silverstone, he proved that even with an older front wing design!
In the World Cup; Spain have won the final against the Netherlands by a solitary goal in extra time. Of course there had to be some controversy; the Spanish goal came from a bad refereeing decision, Howard Webb gave a goal kick to the Spaniards when it should have been a corner kick to the Dutch. Andres Iniesta scored the winning goal less than a minute after Webb’s controversial decision. Of course the Netherlands coach was unhappy with the English referee but it’s simply a case of sour grapes, that’s the luck of the game, sometimes the decision will work in your favour, sometimes it will work against you, that’s football! I think that Spain were worthy winners as the Dutch were very dirty, eight of the XI Dutch players were booked with Johnny Heitinga being sent off for a second bookable offence. Even Dutch legend Johan Cruyff heavily criticised the Netherlands performance, labelling it as “anti-football” instead of “total football”. Well done Spain for winning their maiden World Cup just two years after claiming the Euro championship!