The 33-year old racer overtook his teammate Sebastian Vettel at the start, with the latter experiencing a tire puncture only seconds later. While the German had to make a short trip to the pits for a new set of tires, Webber increased his lead from Lewis Hamilton in front of the pack.
Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso had another start to forget, losing 2 spots and dropping to 5th place after the first few corners. He slightly touched his teammate Felipe Massa’s car while trying to defend his position, causing one of his tires to burst. The Brazilian also visited the pits and returned to the track in 23rd place.
Although only a couple of seconds separated Webber and Hamilton in front, the trailing group, headed by Renault’s Robert Kubica, dropped no less than 20 seconds to the leading duo until the first round of pit stops. After each driver went to the pits to get new tires, Webber emerged once again in front of the field, ahead of Hamilton and Nico Rosberg (who passed Kubica thanks to a great team work in the pit lane).
Alonso tried to pass the Pole himself in order not to lose contact with the Top 3 positions, but shortcut a chicane while pushed by Kubica out of bounds – and passing the Renault driver – which later got him a drive-through penalty from the stewards. Just when he was about to make his drive-though run, the safety car was deployed due to debris coming out of Pedro de la Rosa’s car (his rear wing practically disintegrated in the start/finish straight, without anybody touching it).
The Spaniard was forced to make his pit lane run when the SC went in, which dropped him to 16 overall.
In front of the field, Webber had no problem maintaining his 1st place in front of Hamilton, while Rosberg did the same in front of the second McLaren driver Jenson Button. The reigning world champion had a wonderful start and climbed all the way to 7th place (from 14th on the grid) after a few laps, which he later turned into 4th place after a good pit stop strategy (added Alonso’s penalty).
Rubens Barrichello managed another outstanding race and finished 5th overall, ahead of BMW Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi. Sebastian Vettel made great use of the safety car and overtook no less than 6 drivers in the last 15 laps to grab 7th place, ahead of Force India’s Adrian Sutil, Mercedes GP’s Michael Schumacher and Williams’ Nico Hulkenberg.
Thanks to his mistake-free performance at Silverstone, Webber now climbs to 3rd overall in the drivers classification, closing the gap on championship leader Lewis Hamilton and McLaren’s Jenson Button to 17 and 5 points respectively.
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