Gary's view – British Grand Prix
Former Jordan race engineer Gary Anderson watched many of the top drivers get into a spin at Silverstone, and said tyre strategy – good and bad – helped decide a gripping British Grand Prix.
Former Jordan race engineer Gary Anderson watched many of the top drivers get into a spin at Silverstone, and said tyre strategy – good and bad – helped decide a gripping British Grand Prix.
"I believe Ferrari made some bad decisions on the pit wall. Kimi Raikkonen's first stop was at exactly the same time as Hamilton's. But whereas McLaren changed tyres, Ferrari decided not to. For me, that was the Make it happen moment of the race.
Ferrari will have seen that the track was drying, and decided that the older tyres would be better as they have less rubber on them, so they're more durable on a dry track. But that's a big gamble, because when it started raining again, fresh intermediate tyres were by far the thing to have on. On the other hand, if the sun had come out for the rest of the race, Ferrari would have had a relatively small advantage. So it was a strange decision: it seems that the risk-benefit didn't stack up.
An alternative, more positive Make it happen moment was Honda putting the extreme wet tyres on Rubens Barrichello on his second stop – just before a big downpour. If one of the front runners had done the same thing, they could have closed Lewis Hamilton down very quickly. But none of them made that call. Rubens and the Honda team principal, Ross Brawn, made the right decisions and reaped the reward of a podium finish.
At the end of the day, though, you have to give Lewis credit for his fantastic drive. When you have a 60 second lead like he did towards the end, it's all too easy to slow down a bit, lose the temperature in the tyres, lose grip, and make a big mistake.
But Lewis pushed on, right to the end, and kept it under control. By contrast, many other people went off the track. Felipe Massa had a spin everywhere apart from the pit lane – and I think he tried there too!
I had expected Silverstone to be a close fight between Ferrari and McLaren, but McLaren have made some good developments, particularly a new front wing, and you have to say they've leapfrogged Ferrari now.
Williams didn't have a good weekend, although Nakajima seems to know how to bring the car home and he got a single point for eighth. The team really have to go away now and investigate what are the problems with the car. I think they will be easy to find and hard to fix."
