The British Grand Prix 2012 was the 9th round of the 2012 F1 season, and took place at the Silverstone Circuit in Silverstone, UK, on July 8th.
Mark Webber won the race after starting in the 2nd position, followed by Fernando Alonso, who originally had the pole position, and Sebastian Vettel completing the podium.
Final results
Race evolution
Pit Stops
There were a total of 43 pit stops during the race.
The most popular pit stop windows were:
- Laps 10-16: 19 stops
- Laps 26-35: 16 stops
- Laps 37-38: 4 stops
The fastest pit stop was Lewis Hamilton's, stopping the clock at 24.498 seconds during his pit stop on lap 21, while the slowest one was was Kamui Kobayashi's, who stopped the clock at 39.208 seconds, 14.710 seconds slower than Hamilton, during his pit stop on lap 37.
These times include the time the driver spent going through the pit lane, as well as the actual time he stopped for the mechanics to work on his car.
Strategy
We saw a variety of options in terms of pit stop strategies during this race, however most drivers chose a 2 stops. Only Paul di Resta, Sergio Pérez and Pedro de la Rosa decided to try something different with a 1 stop strategy.
The race winner, Mark Webber, was on a 2 stops strategy.
1 stop
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13Paul di Resta
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7Sergio Pérez
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1Pedro de la Rosa
2 stops
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3Romain Grosjean
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1Sebastian Vettel
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9Pastor Maldonado
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4Michael Schumacher
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2Heikki Kovalainen
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1Felipe Massa
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1Kimi Räikkönen
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5Charles Pic
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1Mark Webber
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4Bruno Senna
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9Jean-Éric Vergne
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1Fernando Alonso
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4Nico Rosberg
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6Kamui Kobayashi
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2Nico Hülkenberg
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6Jenson Button
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1Daniel Ricciardo
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1Narain Karthikeyan
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2Timo Glock
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-Lewis Hamilton
Excluding those drivers who could not finish the race, those on a 1 stop strategy lost an average of 1 positions, while those on a 2 stops strategy gained 1.25 positions on average.
This difference in possitions gained, together with a deeper nalaysis of each strategy, reinforces the conclusion that a 2 stops strategy was the best option.
It is important to note that this might not always be the case for other races held at the Silverstone Circuit, as the conditions might change from year to year, in terms of wheel degradation, accidents, safety cars, etc.
Incidents
There race went on mostly with no incidents. Only 3 divers were involved in circumstances that were severe enough to prevented them from finishing the race.
These included, Sergio Pérez, and Paul di Resta, both retired dure to damage caused by a collision with other cars, and Vitaly Petrov, who suffered an engine malfunction on lap 0.
Collision
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Sergio PérezLap 11
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Paul di RestaLap 2
Engine
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Vitaly PetrovLap 0
Qualifying
Fernando Alonso managed to get the pole position by 0.047 seconds and a final lipe time of 1:51.746. Right next to him, completing the first line of the grid, was Mark Webber.
Track evolution
The conditions of the track worsened from Q1 to Q2, and none of the drivers were able to improve their Q1 times.
The Q3 is the time were all the remaining drivers put all their cards on the table, even those with a superior car who might have been managing their times in Q1 and Q2 push their cars to the limit in Q3. It therefore comes as no surprise that all of the drivers that took place in Q3 managed to improve their times in this last session.