What Was The Deciding Factor In The British Grand Prix?

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It’s not easy living in England during the summertime. Year after year, we lookforward to the months between May and September, a short window in which we hope forblisteringly hot weather so we can enjoy a glass of Pimm's in the park, a game of cricket,or strawberries and cream under the sun during Wimbledon. But this year,predicting what the English weather will do in the summer months has been about as easy asguessing the numbers on a lottery ticket. What we’ve had so far is an unseasonablyhot May, followed by a deluge of rain that has caused widespread flooding and, as we sawat this weekend’s British GrandPrix, rain of biblical proportions on the opening Friday, which turnedSilverstone’s parking lot fields into bogs and led race organizers to turn tens ofthousands of fans away from Saturday’s qualifying. Not only does thechangeable British weather impact fans, it also makes the job of Formula1 team strategists an extremely taxing one. This is because they have to try tomake a call on how long to run on their limited allocation of wet weather or intermediatetires during practice, as well as trying to make a call on qualifying. Teamsare accurately able to judge when a bank of rain is approaching in the pits or on the pitwall to within a matter of minutes and relay that information to the driver over theradio; this is all made possible by tapping into local weather systems via an internal F1intranet. Meteo France, the official Formula 1 weather supplier, is so precise that it canpredict everything a team needs to know about during a race, from wind strength anddirection to the more vital information of when the first drops of rain will fall andwhere. Of course, no system is foolproof, and even if it is accurate to withinminutes, a car may still have to negotiate a sudden burst of rain on normal compound tiresbefore completing the best part of a lap to pit for intermediates or wet tires, or riskstaying out in the hope that the shower is just passing and the track will quickly dryagain. But the weekend started badly, taking these complex tactical decisions out of thehands of the teams. After extreme conditions limited cars to only a handful of laps onFriday, qualifying took place in ever-changing conditions, and race organizers made thecontroversial decision to stop the second qualifying session with only minutes remainingafter another downpour. It worked out perfectly for FernandoAlonso, who would not have made it through but for the stoppage, and he squeezedthrough before pipping Red Bull’s MarkWebber to his first pole in almost two years.Sadly, for British fans, itwas not a happy outing, not only because of the weather but because local heroes LewisHamilton and JensonButton also suffered in the conditions. Although Hamilton, renowned as a good driverin wet conditions, was fastest on the extreme wet tires during Q2, both he and Buttonstruggled to get the intermediate compound tires operating at optimum temperature. Buttonfailed to make it through to Q3, winding up a lowly 16th on the grid, with Hamiltonstarting eighth. Both cars ran with different setups in the race, which was a sign thatthings weren't right with the car and that they weren't confident aerodynamically.Hamilton struggled for grip on his second set of hard tires and was never able to makeinroads, finishing eighth (two places ahead of Button). For pole sitter Alonsoand Webber, the race was another intriguing battle of race strategy between the leadingteams -- Ferrari deciding to put Alonso on the faster-wearing soft tires at the end of therace, with Red Bull choosing to get them out of the way early on. Ultimately, RedBull’s tactic paid dividends, with Webber reeling in and passing Alonso as theFerrari’s softer tires started to lose grip. What with the Grand Prixresults and Andy Murray losing his first Wimbledon final to a rampant Roger Federer undera closed roof, the weather has not been kind to British sports this weekend. Oh, well,there’s always the Olympics. Continue Reading

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