09 Great Britain - Back–to-back success for Raikkonen!
Showing that qualifying does not determine the absolute finishing order for the Grand Prix itself, Kimi Raikkonen became the third and final leader of the British Grand Prix, taking the chequered flag two seconds ahead of Fernando Alonso. The battle for victory was won and lost on strategy and the timing of each stop and it was the French Grand Prix winner who got it spot on.
Lewis Hamilton led away from the Pole Position and despite a great deal of pressure from Raikkonen, maintained his lead until he made his first stop. While Hamilton took service and a set of harder tyres, Raikkonen and Alonso remained on track. A small error saw Hamilton jump forward before the fuelling was completed, but he checked his enthusiasm and no real time was lost. Soon Raikkonen made his first stop and another few laps later, Alonso.
Exiting the pits Alonso jumped ahead no only of Hamilton, but also Raikkonen. It was however a slightly false dawn as Alonso had opted to run a very short middle stint and as a result, Raikkonen ticked away the laps and then showed his speed to take the lead - and the win - after the second and final round of pit stops.
It was a smart race from Raikkonen who never put a wheel wrong. For Alonso, second position will be a disappointment as he only gains two points on Hamilton. The massive Silverstone crowd came to see if Hamilton could covert his pole into the race win. Hamilton pushed hard on a light load at the start, but did not have the pace to run with either Raikkonen or Alonso on this occasion.
Perhaps the most impressive drive came from Felipe Massa. Lining up fourth on the grid the Brazilian stalled his F2007. With the start aborted, Massa found himself at the back of the pack. By lap 22, just after the first round of stops, Massa had worked his way up to seventh position. The final laps of the race saw him chase down Robert Kubica, but was unable to find a way to pass the BMW Sauber. It was a good result for Kubica as he did not crack under the pressure from behind, while Massa will be relieved that he does not lose too much ground after an error at the start.
Nick Heidfeld had a reasonable if unspectacular run to sixth position ahead of the Renault duo of Heikki Kovalainen and Giancarlo Fisichella who started where they finished albeit a lap down, despite the retirement of Ralf Schumacher ahead of them. The team say the target is BMW Sauber at the moment, but they have a long way to go yet to be able to challenge over a race distance.
After the disappointing qualifying session yesterday, Honda were the only team to go for a one stop strategy. It almost paid off for them with Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button finishing in ninth and tenth position respectively.
David Coulthard chased Button across the line to finish 11th in his Red Bull Renault. Team-mate Mark Webber retired whilst running ninth with what seemed to be yet another gearbox related issue.
Nico Rosberg seemed to move up and down the order race long following his problems yesterday in qualifying. The German would take the chequered flag 12th in his Williams Toyota, five seconds ahead of team-mate Alex Wurz. Takuma Sato and Christijan Albers finished two laps down for Super Aguri Honda and Spyker Ferrari.
After showing well in qualifying, Toyota suffered a double failure to finish with Ralf Schumacher retiring with a suspension issue and Jarno Trulli a general handling problem. It was a similar situation for Anthony Davidson in the second Super Aguri as he parked the car with handling problems. Adrian Sutil ran just ahead of team-mate Albers in the Spyker battle before his Ferrari V8 let go.
Raikkonen’s win is his third of the season moves him just ahead of team-mate Massa on 52 points. Alonso meanwhile pulls the gap to Hamilton down to 12 points ahead of the European Grand Prix in two weeks time.