We are at the Nurburgring this week for the German Grand Prix. The racing will take place on the 5.148km GP-Strecke section of the complex.
These are the broadcast times for the weekend
Free Practice 1: Friday 10:00
Free Practice 2: Friday 14:00
Free Practice 3: Saturday 11:00
Qualifying: Saturday 14:00
Race: Sunday 14:00
All times are GMT+2
You can catch our live updates throughout qualifying and the race on twitter @F1_Madness.
Round 9 of the Formula 1 World Championship and we are in Nurburg, Germany at the Nurburgring for the German Grand Prix. The European Grand Prix used to be hosted at the Nurburgring. Today it plays host to the German Grand Prix that alternates with Hockenheim.
Weather for the entire weekend looks sunny and clear. Temperatures will stay in the low to mid 20’s. There is very little to no rain forecast for this weekend which will enable the teams to carry out a full Free Practice Programs
Relive Mercedes F1 driver, Lewis Hamilton’s flight with the RAF Red Arrows onboard with him! So much Wow! here!
Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton gets to fly shotgun with the guys in the RAF Red Arrows squadron
Formula 1 in 2013 hasn’t been short of drama but it well and truly ramped up for the eighth round of the season at Britain’s Silverstone grand prix.
It was home-grown hero Lewis Hamilton who thrashed the field to take only his second pole position at the famous circuit. The margin between the 2008 champion and teammate Rosberg was the biggest it had been all season as Mercedes locked out the front row of the grid. Sebastian Vettel was ever present in third ahead of retiring teammate, Mark Webber.
Force India’s Paul Di Resta delivered an excellent lap for fifth but would later be excluded from qualifying for an underweight car. The Lotus of Kimi Raikkonen and Ferrari of Fernando Alonso seemed to struggle in qualifying trim as the duo only managed to start eighth and ninth.
Lewis Hamilton led cleanly away from pole position as Vettel slotted into third ahead of Rosberg. Mark Webber’s race was made a lot tougher after a clash with Romain Grosjean left the Australian with damage to the front-wing. A bit of damage to a front-wing would be the least dramatic issue of the day.
Lewis Hamilton easily in the lead of the race and steadily building a gap over Vettel would become the first driver to suffer a left rear tyre blowout. The Pirelli tyre seemed to completely disintegrate without any indication whatsoever. Somehow Hamilton was able to return his Mercedes to the pits but his chances of victory had been thrown out the window.
It looked like horrible luck for Hamilton until two laps later Felipe Massa’s Ferrari suffered the exact same failure. Jean-Eric Vergne became the third driver to suffer a tyre blow-out on lap 15 as his left rear spectacularly exploded on the Hangar straight.
The Toro Rosso driver’s tyre failure brought out the safety car as debris from the blowout littered the circuit. McLaren’s Sergio Perez would be the final driver to suffer an identical tyre blow-out on lap 46. At this point drivers were being told to avoid the kerbs in case they were the cause for the tyre problems. But Fernando Alonso didn’t share the same opinion after the race. “I have been racing here 12 years & never had this problem (tyre). I think the kerbs were perfectly ok,” said the Ferrari driver.
Racing resumed on lap 22 with no certainty of whose Pirelli could fail next but there was still a race to be had as Vettel led Rosberg over the start/finish line. The Red Bull driver extended his advantage over Rosberg to two seconds but the Mercedes driver was gradually starting chip away at his lead. Rosberg wasn’t required to do much more work in catching Vettel as the reigning world champion’s car grinded to a halt at the pit entry with a gearbox failure.
The stricken Red Bull prompted another safety car and Rosberg, Webber and Alonso dived into the pitlane for a fresh set of medium tyres. The only front-running driver not to take a fresh set of tyres was Kimi Raikkonen.
Raikkonen was running second when he asked his team why they had not called him into the pits for fresh tyres. The Lotus pitwall had roughly half a lap behind the safety car to decide on a pitstop but responded to Raikkonen’s question with “I don’t know” and “It’s too late now.” On a day when championship leader Vettel failed to score any points the Lotus pitwall destroyed what could have been a significant gain in the championship stakes. Raikkonen eventually finished fifth, defenceless on hard tyres he had put on twenty laps earlier. It is on moments like this that championships are lost and won.
Mark Webber’s announcement of his retirement at the end of the season sent the rumours of Raikkonen joining the Red Bull team into overdrive. Lotus team principal Eric Boullier has said that they are doing everything they can to keep the Finn in the team. He believes that the ‘atmosphere’ within the team is enough to make Raikkonen stay put – it isn’t. During his two year hiatus from Formula 1 the Iceman let it be known that he is only interested in winning races – not fighting for second. The doubt is whether Lotus can consistently deliver up to that standard. Mistakes such as this will surely make Raikkonen’s decision to stay or leave a lot less difficult. Lotus are a good team but many suggest that the only thing making them great is Kimi Raikkonen. Since his return to Formula 1 he hasn’t put a wheel wrong and he has rekindled a kind of speed and driving class second to none. Give this guy what he needs and he will win you a world championship. Lotus’ mistakes could be more costly than they expect.
Mark Webber, recovered from front-wing damage, charged through the field in the closing laps to within seven tenths of race leader Rosberg. Similarly, Fernando Alonso’s fresh tyres allowed him pass several cars and finish third overall. Fernando Alonso was happy to salvage third place on a weekend where Ferrari look decidedly off the pace but called on his team to ‘raise their game’ in the coming races.
Nico Rosberg inherited the lead of the race but he won the British GP on pure merit. Never putting a wheel wrong he soaked up the late-race pressure from Webber like a pro. Career victory number three was well deserved for the most improved driver of 2013.
The Pirelli tyregate saga took a very dramatic turn during the British GP prompting the teams to angrily demand answers from the Italian tyre supplier. So serious was the tyre situation that race director Charlie Whiting admitted post-race that he was close to putting out the red flag.
Paul Hembery has failed to appear at press conferences at the last two races but at some point Pirelli and their motorsport director will have to face the music. Pirelli have been invited, by FIA President Jean Todt, to attend the Sporting Working Committee meeting at the Nurburgring next week in order to find a solution to the tyre problems.
The teams are now pushing for next month’s young driver’s test to be scrapped in favour of a fully fledged tyre test.
Formula One team bosses are demanding urgent action over the Pirelli tyre failures suffered during today’s F1 British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
According to McLaren team principal, Martin Whitmarsh, Formula One is in a “serious situation” as work needs to be done to come up with an urgent solution to the Pirelli tyre crisis witnessed at today’s race.
Meetings are scheduled for the upcoming week, including a Sporting Working Committee meeting on Wednesday but Whitmarsh has added to the sentiments of Charlie Whiting, saying that urgent action is required even before that.
“We clearly have a serious situation where we have to act responsibly, and respect Pirelli,” said Whitmarsh. “They have to do the best they can. We have to make a decision urgently, as it gives you a much better chance than talking about it on Wednesday when you want to drive out of the garage Friday.”
Whitmarsh said that the only way to avoid a repeat of the drama at the German Grand Prix next weekend, would be to revert to last year’s tyres.
“In 2012 we were not having this problem,” he said. “Therefore, if that is a known, established, durable specification, you would have thought that is the easiest thing to do.”
Red Bull boss, Christian Horner has backed Whitmarsh’s view saying, “The most logical thing would be to go back to the tyres that worked well for them previously. The tyres they had last year did not have these failures. They need to find a solution, and they need to address it. Whether they go back to last year’s car or a different tyre they need a solution.”
Lotus team principal Eric Boullier also seems to think reverting to the 2012 rubber is a possible solution saying, “Going back to the Kevlar belt from last year would be one solution. I don’t know what they have in stock and how quick they can produce tyres. That is a question for Pirelli. It is a different track lay-out next weekend and first we need to find out what is causing these failures. But it is a concern.”
Kimi Raikkonen seemed pretty furious after the Lotus F1 Team decided not to pit him under the final safety car for new tyres.
The retirement of Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull 11 laps before the end of the British F1 Grand Prix brought out the safety car with Raikkonen running in second place behind race leader Nico Rosberg.
Behind the Iceman, both Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso took the opportunity to pit and although they both lost track position the fresh tyres allowed them to quickly pick off the cars ahead of them and finish in second and third place respectively.
Raikkonen eventually finished in fifth place and after the race made his feelings pretty clear about the team getting the strategy wrong.
“I don’t understand how we can get it so wrong,” Raikkonen said. “I asked the team, they said no and we had more than half a lap to make the
right call. I think we gave up second place today and I think it’s pretty simple. We had an easy P2 … it was absolutely the wrong call. It’s disappointing but not my fault this time.”
Lotus F1 Team principal, Eric Boullier, explained that Lotus didn’t expect the drivers who pit under the final safety car to gain such a performance advantage.
“It’s very easy after the race to look at it if you look at the three cars on a two pit-stop strategy which were Sutil, Ricciardo and us. We considered the pit stop, to be honest we were not expecting such a big gain in performance by switching to fresh tyres and that’s it, end of story. Alonso was lucky to pit before and Webber had to stop anyway so yes we should have stopped, no question.”
Pirelli have released a statement following the British F1 Grand Prix saying that they will closely investigate the cause of the left rear tyre failures during today’s Silverstone Grand Prix and that the new bonding process is not at fault.
Here is the full statement from Pirelli:
TYRE FAILURES TO BE CLOSELY EXAMINED NEW BONDING PROCESS NOT AT FAULT
Silverstone, June 30, 2013 – Nico Rosberg has given Mercedes its first victory in the British Grand Prix since 1955 with first place at Silverstone.
The were a number of rear-left tyre failures during the race, which affected Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, Felipe Massa (Ferrari), Jean-Eric Vergne (Toro Rosso) and Sergio Perez (McLaren). Pirelli engineers will investigate closely the cause of the failures ahead of next week’s German Grand Prix.
Pirelli’s motorsport director Paul Hembery said: “There have obviously been some issues with rear-left tyre failures which we have not seen before. We are taking the situation very seriously and we are currently investigating all tyres to determine the cause as soon as possible, ahead of the next Grand Prix in Germany. At the moment, we can’t really say much more until we have fully investigated and analysed all of these incidents, which is our top priority. However, we can exclude that the new bonding process, which we introduced at this race, is at cause for the tyre failures we have seen today. There might be some aspect to this circuit that impacts specifically on the latest version of our 2013 specification tyres but at this point we do not want to speculate but will now put together all the evidence to find out what happened and then take appropriate next steps should these be required.”
Formula One Race director Charlie Whiting said today that he “almost red-flagged the race” referring to today’s British Grand Prix which saw four tyre delamanations during the race.
The safety car was deployed after the third tyre blow-out, suffered by Jean Eric-Vergne. Charlie said that not only were the drivers in danger, but the marshals too were being put at risk as they continually tried to clean up all the debris following the incidents.
“It was quite close to being red-flagged; it did occur to me to do that,” he said. “To clear up all the debris was putting marshals at risk, and it is not satisfactory. We haven’t seen a failure like this before – and that is what has been addressed. So we need to analyse it very carefully to see if we are able to establish the cause.”
He went on to say that it was, “too early to draw conclusions” regarding the cause of the tyre issues but hinted that tyres that did not fail could provide vital information in Pirelli’s analysis.
“They have a lot of analysing to do. This includes the tyres that didn’t fail, because maybe we will find something there that was on the verge
of failing that will give us a better indicator of what happened.”
Charlie added that although the failures are to be discussed at a meeting of the Sporting Working Group on Wednesday, a solution must be found in advance, that suits all parties since the German Grand Prix is only one week away.
Nico Rosberg took the win at a dramatic Silverstone British Grand Prix riddled with tyre delamanations and blow outs today.
The two favourites for the win – Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel both lost their hopes of winning when Lewis suffered a tyre blow out and Vettel suffered a gearbox failure.
It was a thrilling race from start to finish but many questions will be raised around the Pirelli tyres and their safety going forward.
Full race review to follow.
Here are the results of the Silverstone F1 British Grand Prix.
