Vettel blows victory chances

Sebastian Vettel blew his British Grand Prix victory chances as he made a dreadful start from pole position at Silverstone.

The Red Bull Racing driver was beaten off the line by team-mate Mark Webber when the lights went out. The two came very close to touching through Copse corner but Webber had the inside line and hit the front.

Vettel picked up a puncture during the first-corner melee and went off at Maggots corner to drop to the back of the field. The German pitted at the end of the opening lap.

Vettel’s woes left McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton in second place, the Briton up from fourth on the grid, while Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso dropped from third to fifth off the start.

Alonso also tangled with team-mate Felipe Massa into Becketts, forcing the Brazilian to pit for a new tyre at the end of the first lap.

Hamilton’s team-mate Jenson Button, who called his car “undriveable” after a poor qualifying yesterday, moved up to eighth place from 14th on the grid by lap three.

Webber was left fuming when his team elected to remove a new nose cone from his car to attach it to that of Vettel ahead of yesterday's qualifying session, and he used his anger to good effect in the early laps as he edged clear.

Successive fastest laps pulled the Australian 2.4 seconds clear of Hamilton by lap eight, although the Briton soon stabilised the gap.

The dramas which befell Vettel and Alonso off the line played into the hands of Renault’s Robert Kubica, who moved up to third place.

The Mercedes of Nico Rosberg was lapping strongly in fourth place ahead of Alonso, while the Williams of Rubens Barrichello was keeping the Ferrari more than honest in sixth.

Kubica’s pace was no match for the two men at the front, however, and by lap 12 of 52 he was 15.2 seconds behind Hamilton, with a gaggle of cars trailing in his wake.

Virgin Racing’s Lucas Di Grassi was the first retirement of the race on lap 12.