

The British Grand Prix was another good race with plenty of action and intrigue. We now have five storylines coming into the second half of the season. I will run through these storylines while reviewing the race.
The championship is wide open!After two wins by Williams and Daniel Moreno, John Zimmer's championship aspirations had taken a large hit. Moreno dominated in Canada and France while Zimmer had been taken out in Canada and been slow in France. However, Britain saw Benetton, Ferrari and Williams on equal footing. At the start, Padraig O'Connell went down the inside and snatched the lead away from Zimmer. Zimmer fell back to fourth after being passed by both Williams drivers. Then, on Lap 3, Moreno went past O'Connell and led. Suddenly, on Lap 6, Moreno went to lap Anton Kaliniczenko.
Disaster ensued.Padraig O'Connell took the lead while Mann, Zimmer and Takagi scrapped for second. Unfortunately, all but John Zimmer were on two-stop strategies. If Zimmer could keep the car on the road, he would be able to take an easy win, no matter how well O'Connell was driving. However, Zimmer would very nearly be run off the track, by his own teammate, nonetheless!
The Zimmer/Takagi Feud Has BegunKazuhiko Takagi has been trying to prove that he is a championship contender this season. His win at San Marino was terrific but he has suffered from the brunt of the Benetton reliability issues. At Silverstone, it appears that Takagi went out of his way to prove that he was capable of winning the championship. At the start, he got the jump on Zimmer and was running in third after Moreno's unfortunate incident. Zimmer, Mann and Takagi all battled for second while O'Connell held a large lead. The battle was furious as they got caught in a massive traffic jam. As they dodged through traffic, Takagi and Zimmer swapped places after every lap. At first, Zimmer got the jump on Takagi at the Hangar Straight on Lap 6 but Zimmer was blocked by a Pacific, letting Takagi back through later on. Zimmer passed by Takagi again on Lap 10 but he went wide while lapping Ben Fleet on Lap 11, letting Takagi barge through. Takagi and Zimmer then banged wheels again at Copse on Lap 12 with Takagi holding his position over his team leader. Zimmer finally passed by Takagi at the Hangar Straight on Lap 12 before having to deal with Douglas Mann's exploding Williams car.
Later in the race, Takagi retired again with an engine failure. Afterwards, Takagi went to the post-race conference and did a Barrichello; basically, he started whining about how the team was trying to sabotage him. Zimmer responded by accusing Douglas Mann of using Ben Fleet's DAMS to run him off the road on Lap 11. Douglas Mann was furious after his car failed and bemoaned the performance of the Renault engine, a sentiment that Takagi echoed.
The backmarkers are TOO DAMN SLOW!See the video of Daniel Moreno above. By tradition, I should give Zielenkovski ROTR for crashing into the leaders while being lapped, but I thought that Moreno was actually in the wrong. If you look closely, Moreno speeds up for no reason and tries to punt Zielenkovksi off the road, causing an avoidable accident. All Zielenkovski did was stay on the racing line. Anyway, both drivers escape ROTR because of other stupid antics.
McLaren and Jordan need to get cars to the endBoth McLarens and both Jordans failed to finish the race with mechanical trouble. For McLaren, this was their third double-DNF of the season. Damon Cannon has been hamstrung by reliability all season and Leonhard von Gottorp has been inconsistent. Ferrari has shot off into the distance with another double points finish leaving McLaren and Jordan to fight for fourth place in the Constructors'. Both teams need to improve their reliability as they consistently run in the points but fail to finish, leaving guys like Tom Douglas and Pieter Kickert (
IIDOTR for the race) valuable points.
Samael Meerwick is having a spectacular ROTY campaignAnother race, another miserable outing for Samael Meerwick in the Footwork. He didn't have such a bad qualifying (for once) but was still miles behind his teammate. In the race, Kazuyoshi Hoshino brought his Footwork to tenth place. Where was Meerwick? Well, he spun on Lap 1 (without being hit by anyone) and dropped back to the end of the field. He failed to get past the Pacifics and Miko Fakkinen and generally drove a crappy race before his car blew up. Despite the competition, Meerwick takes out
Reject of the Race for Great Britain. He is also in contention for ROTY with Sebastian Gazurek, Masta Valsattis and George Tramontani.
Lead Changes:
O'Connell: 1-3
Moreno: 4-6
O'Connell: 7-32
Zimmer: 33-51
Drivers' Championship (unofficial)
1. John Zimmer - 54
2. Daniel Moreno - 44
3. Kazuhiko Takagi - 24
4. Padraig O'Connell - 23
5. Douglas Mann - 22
6. Leonhard von Gottorp - 8
=6 Tom Douglas - 8
8. James Davies - 6
9. Rory McAllister - 5
10. Pablo da Silva - 4
=11 Damon Cannon - 3
=11 Dennis Mignolet - 3
=11 Pieter Kickert - 3
14. Gio van Dycke - 2
15. Miko Fakkinen - 1
Constructors' Championship
1. Benetton - 78
2. Williams - 66
3. Ferrari - 31
=4 Jordan - 11
=4 McLaren - 11
6. Sauber - 7
7. Ligier 3
8. Tyrrell - 2
9. Minardi - 1