Watch: Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso holds sway at Silverstone | 2011 British GP. Fernando Alonso won the 2011 British GP for Ferrari.

Fernando Alonso won the British Grand Prix on Sunday for Ferrari’s first victory of the season at the same circuit where 60 years earlier they had enjoyed their first success in Formula One.

The win, gifted to the Spaniard by Red Bull after world champion Sebastian Vettel’s hopes were scuppered by a wheelnut problem at his second pitstop, was the 27th of Fernando Alonso’s career and lifted him level with the great Jackie Stewart in fifth position in the all-time lists. Alonso took the lead on the 28th of the 52 laps when he pitted right behind Vettel, who had grabbed the lead off the grid. As the German’s crew wrestled with the rear left tyre, the Spaniard slipped past and was gone.

It was Ferrari’s 216th win since that first with Argentina’s ‘Pampas Bull’ Jose Froilan Gonzalez on July 14, 1951. Fernando Alonso had driven Gonzalez’s historic Ferrari around the circuit for two laps before the race and the old magic crossed the generations.

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