[3] It was the ninth race of the 2011 season, and saw the introduction of a ban on off-throttle blown diffusers,[4] the practice of forcing the engine to continue to produce exhaust gasses to generate downforce when drivers are not using the throttle.

The circuit underwent a major reconfiguration for the 2010 British Grand Prix, with the addition of the "Arena" loop bypassing the old Abbey, Bridge and Priory corners before re-joining at Brooklands.

[8][9][10] On 30 June, it was announced that Scuderia Toro Rosso testing and reserve driver Daniel Ricciardo would replace Narain Karthikeyan at HRT Formula 1 Team.

Sebastian Vettel finished the hour-long session fastest, six hundredths of a second faster than Fernando Alonso and four-tenths quicker than team-mate Mark Webber, whose progress was hampered by an early problem with his gearbox.

The first qualifying period saw all twenty-four cars take to the circuit as soon as the session began in response to the imminent threat of rain; it was noted by teams and commentators alike that the old start line and Copse corner in particular were slippery.

Alonso had an excursion into the gravel trap at Luffield, but emerged unscathed and went on to set his fastest time within two laps of the incident, while the Toro Rossos of Jaime Alguersuari and Sébastien Buemi were caught out on the circuit as a heavy downpour began in the final five minutes of the session.

Both drivers were eliminated, with Alguersuari qualifying seventeenth and Buemi eighteenth, allowing Heikki Kovalainen to enter Q2 for the first time since the 2011 Spanish Grand Prix.

Timo Glock qualified his Virgin MVR-02 in twentieth place ahead of Jarno Trulli in the second Lotus T128 and Jérôme d'Ambrosio.

The Hispanias of Vitantonio Liuzzi and Daniel Ricciardo qualified on the final row of the grid, with the Australian rookie half a second behind his team-mate.

The rain died down in the interlude following the first qualifying period, and when the second period began, the drivers took to the circuit on a variety of tyre compounds, including both the hard and soft dry tyres and the intermediate-grade rubber owing to the varying conditions around the circuit; the old main straight and Copse remained slippery, while the Vale and Club Corner were noticeably dry.

Felipe Massa went on to set the fastest time from Webber and Alonso, while a late lap from Jenson Button saw him through to the final qualifying period.

Vitaly Petrov and Nick Heidfeld finished the session in fourteenth and sixteenth respectively – split by the Williams of Rubens Barrichello – in Renault's worst qualifying performance of the season.

Kamui Kobayashi finished eighth ahead of Nico Rosberg, who, like Button, had his final flying run cut short by the conditions.

The race started under difficult conditions, with a full wet track from the Arena to Chapel, but the remaining sections being dry; as a result of this all of the teams elected to run on intermediate tyres.

Vettel started building up a comfortable lead ahead of Webber whilst Jenson Button struggled, first losing fourth place to Massa and then being passed by Hamilton as the 2008 World Champion climbed back up through the field.

As the first round of scheduled pit stops approached, Michael Schumacher collided with Kamui Kobayashi at Luffield, spinning the Japanese driver around.

Meanwhile, Jaime Alguersuari and Sébastien Buemi were fighting up the order from their poor grid positions, and both successfully passed the struggling Renault of Vitaly Petrov.

The error dropped di Resta well down the order, and he eventually made contact with Buemi at Copse, damaging the Swiss driver's left-rear tyre.

As the race entered the final two laps, Webber was close enough to Vettel to attempt a pass while Massa was visibly faster than Hamilton.

Alonso won the race – Ferrari's only win of the 2011 season – sixteen seconds ahead of Vettel and Webber with Hamilton fourth and Massa fifth.

Red Bull Racing's Christian Horner responded to the protest, stating that the Mercedes teams had been granted concessions of their own to manage pressure within the crank case.

[19] Due to the teams' dissatisfaction with the situation, the FIA has stated that it is prepared to withdraw the rule change from the German Grand Prix, restoring the Valencia specification of regulations, which would allow teams the freedom to run engine maps at their discretion, but require them to use the same engine maps between qualifying and the race.

[21] At a second meeting among the teams on Sunday afternoon, Ferrari and Sauber agreed to the terms of the proposal, abandoning the ban on blown diffusers for the 2011 season.