Sunday’s slow-burner was a classic of its kind. It saw Raikkonen pit for a new
set of soft tyres with 12 laps remaining before passing his team‑mate Romain
Grosjean and hunting down Vettel, by then on a used set of mediums, closing
to within a second as they began the final lap. The Finn, sporting his new
Mohican hairdo, could not quite land the killer blow, leaving Vettel to milk
the applause of the home crowd. Remarkably, it was his first win in Europe
since Monza 2011.
“It’s a great relief and a special day,” said the triple champion, who joined
Michael and Ralf Schumacher as the only Germans to have won their home grand
prix.
“It will take a little while to sink in, but I’m incredibly proud today, the
team did a fantastic job for strategy and pit stops.
“It was so difficult – I pushed every single lap but it’s so tough when you
are on the edge. You cannot go over the [window for] tyres too much because
then you won’t reach the end of the stint, and you have to get through
traffic as quick as you can.”
Raikkonen felt that his final pit‑stop may have been unnecessary but struggled
to communicate this to his his team because of radio gremlins. “I could hear
the team but they couldn’t hear me, apart from at two corners,” he said. “I
wonder if we should have gone to the end as the tyres were OK. But I think
for the team we had a good race.”
Hamilton was not in such good spirits. Having lost the lead off the line, he
struggled all afternooon with his tyres, only just managing to pip his
erstwhile McLaren
team-mate Jenson
Button for fifth on the final lap. For all that Button had a
brilliant race, you know it must have been a sobering afternoon for the
Mercedes driver to be engaged in a fight with the current McLaren for fifth.
Button said that he felt robbed, hitting out at the Caterhams of Charles Pic
and Giedio van der Garde for not moving over quickly enough. “They destroyed
our race in terms of fighting for fifth place,” Button said.
“They’re obviously racing for position, but when you get blue flags you have
to move over. It was disappointing and I’ve spoken to them both and they
didn’t really think they did anything wrong.”
Webber, meanwhile, recovered from his botched pit stop to make full use of the
safety car, unlapping himself and finishing just behind Button in seventh.
His thoughts, though, as well as those of the sport in general, were on the
cameraman, who sustained two broken ribs and a fractured collarbone and was
lucky not to be hit on the head when Webber’s wheel rolled through the
McLaren garage towards Mercedes before hitting a wing gun and flying up into
the air.
“It was scary,” Martin Whitmarsh, the McLaren team principal, said. “Those of
us who were around 25 years ago without speed limits [in the pitlanes] could
smell the danger. We have become a little bit complacent.”
Given the current focus on safety in the wake of the Silverstone tyre fiasco,
we can expect to see a tightening up of pit‑lane procedures. Mercedes team
principal Ross Brawn suggested the mandatory use of helmets by everyone
working in the pit area.
“On the basis of what we have seen today we should be thinking that all people
in the pitlane are properly dressed and equipped,” he said.
“Everyone in the pitlane should have a helmet on. It is certainly worth
reviewing the whole thing.”