After posting various pictures of the support events and build up to the 2013 British Grand Prix, here are some pictures of the race itself. It was an interesting and dramatic Grand Prix, with initial home excitement about a British driver on pole position, in the form of Lewis Hamilton. He started well, but was the first to fall victim to a phenomenon that would dominate this race, that of exploding tyres. One of his rear Pirelli tyres failed in dramatic style, causing him to fight to hold the car, and to struggle into the pits, moving from the front of the grid to the back. This was not a popular outcome with the home fans, and there was some disappointment as world champion Sebastian Vettel took the lead of the race.
The next to fall foul of the tyre issue was Ferrari’s Felipe Massa, who suffered a similar fate going through The Loop, and again had to limp his car back to the pits for new tyres. Shortly afterwards, as I looked down the Hangar Straight, watching the Lotuses of Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean battle for position, the car in front, the Toro Rosso of Jean-Eric Vergne, also had a catastrophic tyre failure, throwing debris into the way of the drivers behind him. This resulted in an appearance by the safety car, and the track being scoured first by marshalls, and then by sweeping equipment, I suspect not just to clear the rubber but to check for any other debris that may have been the cause of these tyre problems.
The race did continue, and this was not the end of the tyre problems. However, tyres were not the only troublesome part of the cars in the race, and the leader, Sebastian Vettel, found his car slow to a halt on the International Pit Straight. This brought the safety car back out on lap 42, and it remained until lap 46, leaving a six lap dash for the podium positions. These last few minutes were remarkably exciting, with various drivers pushing for position. Mark Webber had made it through the grid, and in the last laps, was chasing Nico Rosberg for the victory. Fernando Alonso was also pushing hard, and remarkably, Lewis Hamilton had recovered from his earlier set back to be moving through the field, and starting his last lap just behind third place man Fernando Alonso. The race finished with drivers in the order Rosberg, Webber, Alonso, Hamilton, Raikkonen, Massa, Sutil, Ricciardo, Di Resta and Hulkenberg making up the top ten.
Rosberg was a relatively popular winner, and the crowd seemed happy to see Lewis recover from his early problems to finish in a strong position. The received wisdom on the day was that another lap or two would have seen a Mark Webber win and a Lewis Hamilton third place.
Here are some of my photos from the race, I hope that you enjoy them.
There is an index of my photos from the 2013 British Grand Prix weekend here.
