2012 British Grand Prix

The 2012 British Grand Prix (formally the 2012 Formula 1 Santander British Grand Prix ) [ 1 ] was a Formula One motor race that took place at the Silverstone Circuit in Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire , England on 8 July 2012. [ 4 ] It was the ninth round of the 2012 Formula One season , the 63rd time the event had been a round of the Formula One World Championship, and the 67th time it had been contested overall. The 52-lap race was won by Red Bull driver Mark Webber , who took his second ...

This would prove to be Webber's 9th and final career F1 victory. [ 5 ] This was also the last victory for an Australian Formula One driver until Daniel Ricciardo's victory in the 2014 Canadian Grand Prix , Ricciardo having replaced Webber at Red Bull after the latter's retirement at the end of the 2013 season.

Like the 2011 British Grand Prix , tyre supplier Pirelli brought its silver-banded hard compound tyre as the harder "prime" tyre and the yellow-banded soft compound tyre as the softer "option" tyre. [ 12 ]

Dani Clos replaced Narain Karthikeyan at HRT for the first practice session, [ 13 ] having previously driven the car at the Spanish Grand Prix . [ 14 ] Valtteri Bottas took Bruno Senna 's seat at Williams , while Jules Bianchi drove Nico Hülkenberg 's car for Force India for the duration of the session. [ 15 ]

The teams were due to test an "experimental" hard tyre compound developed by Pirelli during the first free practice, with a view to introducing it as a racing tyre later in the season; [ 16 ] however, wet conditions made this impossible. [ 17 ] Romain Grosjean was the fastest driver in the first session, ahead of Daniel Ricciardo and Lewis Hamilton . Fernando Alonso and the Force Indias of Paul di Resta and Jules Bianchi elected not to set lap times in the face of the difficult conditions. [ 15 ...

The second session was similarly washed out and saw limited running as teams tried to preserve their wet- and intermediate-compound tyres. Hamilton was fastest, leading Kamui Kobayashi and Michael Schumacher as Grosjean elected not to set a time. [ 18 ] Bruno Senna brought out a red flag that resulted in a ten-minute stop to the session when he hit a patch of standing water at Becketts, spinning and crashing heavily into the barriers. Fernando Alonso also encountered trouble, spinning and hittin...

The third and final session was declared dry, but was run under the threat of rain and saw plenty of activity as the teams pushed hard to make up for lost time running in the wet on Friday. Charles Pic stopped on the circuit after twenty minutes, forcing the temporary suspension of the session while his car was removed. Pic later returned to the circuit, but stopped once again, and his car was removed by marshalls without forcing the session to be stopped. Alonso ended the session fastest overal...

The weather delivered on its promise of more rain, inundating the circuit ahead of Q2. The session was red-flagged with just over six minutes remaining after four cars span off within the space of a minute, and Sauber 's Sergio Pérez at the top of the time sheets. The stoppage lasted for ninety-two minutes while race officials waited for the rain to stop and the circuit to clear. When the session re-opened, the seventeen drivers would have enough time left over for one set of flying laps, forcin...

Q3 was fought between the Ferraris , Red Bulls and Michael Schumacher 's Mercedes . Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa quickly locked out the front row of the grid, until late laps from Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel left the Red Bull cars first and second. Massa was unable to improve his lap time and finished fifth, while Schumacher pushed Webber off pole. Webber reclaimed it with his next lap, only to lose it in turn to Alonso on the Spaniard's final lap of the session. Kimi Räikkönen , the la...

An engine failure on Vitaly Petrov 's Caterham on his way round to the grid meant he had to return to the pits and retire the car before the race had even begun. When it did, however, it was polesitter Alonso who maintained his lead into the first corner. Webber and Schumacher followed him round in their same positions, but Vettel fell prey to Massa and Räikkönen, before quickly getting back past the Finn. Paul di Resta , in tenth place at the time, suffered a puncture as a result of his right r...

When the chequered flag fell, Mark Webber won his second British Grand Prix, following his victory in 2010 . Alonso was 2nd, Vettel not having the pace to catch Alonso and remaining 3rd. Felipe Massa finished 5 seconds behind Vettel, Romain Grosjean recovered from the first lap incident to finish sixth, behind his teammate Kimi Räikkönen . The other points scorers were Schumacher , Hamilton , Senna , and Jenson Button in 10th.

Pastor Maldonado received a € 10,000 fine the incident with Sergio Pérez . Kamui Kobayashi received a €25,000 fine for the pit-lane incident which was described by the stewards as a 'very dangerous move which had potentially serious implications'.

A new podium design and interview format was introduced at this Grand Prix; instead of Webber, Alonso, and Vettel proceeding to the interview room in the media centre, Jackie Stewart conducted the televised interview on the podium, allowing the drivers to address the crowd directly. [ 20 ] The drivers then proceeded to the interview room for the press conference with assembled media. [ 21 ] This form of post-race interviewing was used in every race, with alternating hosts, until the 2018 Chinese...

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