British Grand Prix 2013 - Report

Nico Rosberg fended off a charging Mark Webber to take victory in an exciting and eventful British Grand Prix that was marked by a series of spectacular tyre failures.

No fewer than four drivers - Lewis Hamilton, Felipe Massa, Jean-Eric Vergne and Sergio Perez - saw their rear-left tyres disintegrate over the course of the race, raising potential safety concerns over the current construction of the Pirelli rubber.

Lewis Hamilton, having secured an emphatic pole position to the delight of the Silverstone faithful on Saturday, led away from Sebastian Vettel only to suffer from tyre failure on just the eighth lap of the race.

That handed the Red Bull driver a comfortable advantage, which he maintained throughout the Safety Car period that followed as the marshals rushed to remove the debris caused by the tyre dramas of Hamilton as well as Massa and Vergne, which occurred a handful of laps later.

Vettel looked to have a fourth win of the season in his pocket until his car suffered a gearbox failure with just eleven laps to go, the reigning champion grinding to a halt just after the pit-lane entrance.

The Safety Car was scrambled once more, with Rosberg assuming the lead of the race at this stage having dropped behind Vettel at the start from the front row but re-taking second after Hamilton's woes.

With the Mercedes team detecting the beginnings of a puncture for Rosberg just as the Safety Car was deployed, the Brackley outfit were able to bring their man in for a change of tyres without losing the lead.

The race resumed with just six laps remaining, with Rosberg stretching his advantage over second place man Kimi Raikkonen, who questioned his team's decision to not pit for fresh tyres under the Safety Car.

It proved to be the wrong call however, as the defenceless Finn slipped behind Webber, Alonso and a recovering Hamilton - all of whom pitted under the Safety Car - in the closing laps of the race.

Webber proceeded to make major inroads into Rosberg's advantage at the head of the field, but couldn't do quite enough to overhaul the German in the last four laps, who took his third career win by a margin of seven tenths of a second.

It was a fine drive by Webber in his last visit to Silverstone as an F1 driver, especially considering a poor start dropped him from fourth on the grid to fifteenth on the first lap.

Alonso completed the podium in third place, narrowly ahead of Hamilton, with another strong drive, cutting Vettel's points advantage down from 36 to 21. Raikkonen, who had to be content with fifth, is now 32 points away from the championship lead.

Like Hamilton, Massa did an excellent job of re-gaining the places he lost after his tyre failure, clawing his way up from the very back of the grid to cross the line in sixth. The Brazilian was running in a competitive fifth at the time of his tyre blowout after a sensational start from eleventh on the grid.

Adrian Sutil ended up seventh for Force India, plummeting from third behind the Safety Car as a result of opting to not pit like Raikkonen. Next up was Toro Rosso driver Daniel Ricciardo, who drove solidly after turning heads at a crucial time on Saturday with a career-high grid slot of fifth.

Paul Di Resta had qualified in fifth, but was sent to the back of the grid after his Force India was found to be underweight. However, that didn't prevent the Scot from battling his way back to score points from a lowly grid slot for the third race in succession, finishing a creditable ninth.

The final point went to Nico Hulkenberg's Sauber, with the Williams drivers Pastor Maldonado and Valtteri Bottas just missing out on points in eleventh and twelfth places.

Jenson Button endured a miserable home race, crossing the line in a pitiful thirteenth place after being muscled back several positions after the final Safety Car. Perez's tyre failure, whilst running comfortably in the points, made it two races in a row where McLaren have failed to score.

Esteban Gutierrez brought the second Sauber home in fourteenth, ahead of the four perennial tail-enders; Charles Pic beat home Jules Bianchi, Max Chilton and Giedo van der Garde.

Joining Vettel, Perez and Vergne on the list of retirements was Romain Grosjean, who appeared to make contact with a slow-starting Webber at the start and faded from a likely points finish late in the race before coming into the garage with a lap to run.

As exciting as the finish between Rosberg and Webber was, the British Grand Prix will be remembered principally for tyre failures. Coming just over a week after appearing before the International Tribunal, events at Silverstone will come as another major PR headache for Pirelli.

The teams have hitherto failed to reach an agreement that would allow the Italian firm to change the construction of the tyre - something which Pirelli wanted to do in order to avoid a repeat of the de-laminations seen most notably up until now during practice at Bahrain.

Alonso was perilously close to launching over the back of Perez's car as the McLaren suffered its blowout; only the Spaniard's lightning reflexes prevented a serious accident from taking place. As Hamilton said after the race, it's not acceptable to wait until such a calamity occurs before action is taken.

The rules nonetheless state that changes to the tyre specification can be made mid-season for safety reasons, but Pirelli have hitherto insisted, perhaps understandably, that previous failures were not unsafe and so were thus unable to make modifications.

Such an argument is unquestionably no longer valid after today. That means it's time for Pirelli to put its pride to one side and work together with the teams to ensure a solution is found in time for the German Grand Prix in a week's time.