page_title: 2010 British Grand Prix
section_title: Qualifying
hierarchical_section_title: 2010 British Grand Prix / Report / Qualifying
caption_attribution_description: Jenson Button driving for McLaren at the 2010 British Grand Prix. Photographer: Andrew Hoskins.
context_page_description: The 2010 British Grand Prix was the tenth race of the 2010 Formula One season. On 7 December 2009, it was confirmed that the race would take place at Silverstone for the next seventeen years after the failure of Donington Park to raise the necessary funds to hold the race. The event was staged on 11 July, the same day as the 2010 FIFA World Cup final.
  The race was won by Red Bull driver Mark Webber, taking his third victory of the season.
context_section_description: The beginning of qualifying was marked by controversy following Vettel's wing failure. Red Bull had brought a new aerodynamic package to the race that included a new front wing, and team principal Christian Horner made the decision to remove the new front wing from Webber's car and give it to Vettel. This prompted an angry outburst from the Australian, with public perception being that Red Bull had robbed Webber for the sake of favouring Vettel, particularly following the aftermath of their collision in Istanbul. Otherwise, the first session saw the elimination of Jaime Alguersuari and the Lotuses, Virgins and Hispanias. Timo Glock edged out Kovalainen in the dying moments to qualify as the best of the newcomers, only to have Kovalainen take the place back moments later.
  The second session saw the elimination of Jenson Button, with commentator Martin Brundle noting that the McLaren MP4-25 was incredibly rough over the bumps in the circuit, particularly on the approach to the new section. The Renaults of Robert Kubica and Vitaly Petrov also struggled despite their promising form in practice, and while Kubica just made it through to Q3, Petrov's session ended early when the car developed a fuel problem. Although the team were able to get the Russian out for one final lap at the end of the session, it was a sedate effort that only elevated him to sixteenth. Following the worst qualifying performance of his career in Valencia, Michael Schumacher set the fifth-fastest time of the session, with the team attributing their recent run of poor results to upgrading the car without fully understanding the effects of their new parts. Vitantonio Liuzzi was issued with a five-place penalty after qualifying for impeding Nico Hülkenberg when the Italian violently cut across the Williams driver as he made a mistake at Abbey. At the end of the session, Adrian Sutil had qualified eleventh, ahead of Kamui Kobayashi, Hülkenberg, Button, Petrov and Sébastien Buemi, with Liuzzi relegated to twentieth place after his penalty.
  The final session was dominated by Red Bull, with Vettel and Webber going blow-for-blow. The German prevailed by a tenth of a second, prompting Webber's outburst, with the Australian expressing extreme dissatisfaction with lining up on the dirty side of the grid, which had traditionally been a bad starting place at Silverstone. Fernando Alonso out-qualified Lewis Hamilton after the Briton somehow managed to overcome the troubles experienced by teammate Button, with Nico Rosberg fifth. Despite earlier problems – suspected of being related to the car being caught in a crosswind – Robert Kubica managed sixth ahead of Felipe Massa, Rubens Barrichello and Pedro de la Rosa, the Spaniard's first time in Q3 all season. Michael Schumacher had to settle for the tenth and final place on the grid after only doing one lap as he had only had one set of tyres left over.
  In addition to Liuzzi's penalty, Jaime Alguersuari was fined five thousand dollars for an unsafe pit release, and Sakon Yamamoto was warned for slowing other drivers.
caption: Jenson Button qualified in fourteenth after struggling to find the correct balance with his car.
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