The tenth round of the championship took us to a rather famous circuit on the Northamptonshire/Buckinghamshire border, a home race for several teams who are based in and around the area. The paddock was also greeted by a strong 140,000 fans in attendance on race day. Add to that a new format to try, and a controversial first lap crash, you can certainly speak of an action-packed weekend.
Here are the top of the class contenders and struggle bus riders from Silverstone:
Top of the class:
Charles Leclerc – Qualifying: 5th | Sprint: 4th | Race: 2nd
This year, Ferrari aren’t quite where they’d like to be, but it is undeniable that Silverstone was a good weekend for them. Carlos Sainz finished sixth, allowing him to take home 8 points. The real star of the show, however, was Charles Leclerc. He had a steady weekend, but then managed to capitalize on Bottas’ slow start and the collision between Verstappen and Hamilton to take the lead.
A lead he held onto for the next 49 laps, only for Hamilton to sweep past with two laps remaining. Considering this is Charles’ first podium finish in a year and he has just led one lap in the previous 27 Grand Prix, I’d say that the title of driver of the day is well deserved. Still, many fans (including me) would have loved to see him on the top step.
Silverstone is a track that Charles has excelled in during his time at Ferrari and his finished in the top 4 on all four occasions driving for the Scuderia, but very few people would have predicted that he had even a small chance of winning the race. Whilst Charles didn’t quite have enough in the end, Sunday’s performance in particular shows just how far Ferrari have come since the disasters of 2020 and that awful performance at the French GP just a month ago.
Lando Norris – Qualifying: 6th | Sprint: 5th | Race: 4th
Lando was clearly disappointed with losing out on a podium, but this only shows just how competitive he and his team have become this year. He has scored points in every F1-outing this season and this is his 9th time finishing in the top 5.
Norris had a great restart, taking P3 from Bottas, a spot he held on quite comfortably until his tyre change on lap 21. There was some trouble with affixing his right-rear wheel during the pitstop, resulting in the Brit ending up behind Bottas.
During interviews, Norris was vocal about his disappointment, wishing that he would have had the chance to be ahead and fight for his position on track, but conceded that with McLaren bringing it home 4th and 5th there really was nothing to be ashamed of. He also broke the record of most consecutive points finish for the Woking squad.
Even though Lando might not be completely happy with how this weekend turned out, I think that nobody can disagree with me classing him as one of the top of the class yet again.
Sebastian Vettel – Qualifying: 10th | Sprint: 8th | Race: 19th
Alright, admittedly, Sebastian probably shouldn’t be among the top of the class this time round – at least not when you judge him based on his results. He showed pace this weekend, but he misjudged the situation when going wheel-to-wheel with Fernando Alonso, which resulted in him spinning to the back of the field before eventually being forced to retire the car with a cooling issue. It certainly wasn’t comparable to the heroic drive that got him on the podium in Baku. His teammate quietly and patiently worked his way up from 14th to 8th to score points, whilst Vettel came away empty-handed.
So why is he among the top dogs, you ask? Well, Vettel’s hands might have been devoid of points at the end of the race, but they certainly weren’t idle. They were put to work cleaning up the grandstands along with a group of fans. As the German driver spent several hours picking up litter.
It isn’t the first time Vettel put himself to work for a good cause, as between the Austrian races he stayed local to work with a group of kids to build and install a ‘bee hotel’ and he could be found handing out flower seeds in the TV pen. The German is letting his actions speak for him, something we can only applaud him for.
Then for honourable mentions, I briefly want to turn the spotlight to Fernando Alonso. The double world champion was at his best during the sprint race, rising six places at the start and later defended hard to keep that place in the race.
I also wanted to give an honourable mention to both Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen. For a Verstappen fan like me, the outcome of the collision between the two of them wasn’t exactly desirable – but considering we as fans always ask for harder racing, the two top contenders for the championships certainly gave us what we were asking for. When you ask me for my opinion on the collision, I can only say that in my (unprofessional) opinion, the whole ordeal was a racing incident between two drivers fighting tooth and nail.
Perhaps it’s the orange glasses I don, but I do think that Lewis was slightly more to blame than Max, but in the end, I’m not exactly cross with either of them. Had it been the other way around, I doubt that it would have panned out much different, as both drivers are stubborn as bulls (heh, get it?). What matters most is that Max Verstappen comes away unscathed after that 51G crash. Whether I actually agree with Hamilton’s penalty or not you can find out a little further down…
The struggle bus:
Sergio Pérez – Qualifying: 4th | Sprint: 20th | Race: 16th
For the second successive year, the British Grand Prix was one to forget for Sergio Pérez. Twelve months ago, he had to miss the Silverstone doubleheader after a positive Covid-19 test – whilst this time around he had a rather unfortunate spin in the F1 sprint, after which he struggled to recover in the race.
He was actually cruising in the points when he was pitted for fresh tyres. This so he could snatch the fastest lap from Lewis Hamilton and keep him from earning the bonus point that comes with it (only if you finish in the top 10).
I must say that it was a bold move from Red Bull, who are clearly playing this game on a whole different chessboard from the rest of the track, but while they kept Hamilton from gaining an extra point, they also cheated themselves out of a handful points for Pérez.
This resulted in Checo dropping two places in the driver’s championship, Mercedes are now only four points behind in the constructors’ standings.
F1 Stewards
Alright, so the only thing I’m asking from the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile is to be more consistent. Whilst last season, they were pretty laissez-faire when it came to judging the on-track action, this year they seem particularly trigger happy, and that without rhyme or reason.
They’ve been dishing out Super license penalty points left and right. In my opinion, George Russell forcing Sainz off track was a first-lap racing incident and nothing else. I would have perhaps understood the three-place grid penalty, but what I certainly didn’t get was the penalty point on his license (I actually didn’t really get the two penalty points Norris received in Austria either.) I agree with Norris, who has previously said that penalty points should be reserved for errors “which put people in danger” rather than racing incidents.
To be honest, I only agreed with Hamilton’s 10-second penalty and 2 penalty points on his license because I thought that the FIA were too harsh on George. As mentioned previously, I do think the collision between Hamilton and Verstappen was a first-lap racing incident with Hamilton a little more to blame, but then again, I deemed the little lovetap between George and Carlos as a first-lap (sprint) racing incident too. If they were that hard on our Williams Golden boy, they had to stick to the same ledger to judging the collision between Hamilton and Verstappen.
The (racist) fans
Look, I get that everyone’s emotions run high during a race, mine do too. I sure glowered at the telly for a solid few minutes after Max Verstappen ended up into the barriers, and I can only imagine how much more involved the drivers and their teams are, so I don’t really mind the passive-aggressive back-and-forth between Toto, the stewards, Christian and Jonathan. Everyone is going to back their own corner, and it isn’t surprising that dedicated fans follow them there and defend their favourite drivers and teams.
What I’m not standing for, however, is the vile behaviour some of the fanbase showed towards Lewis Hamilton. It’s inexcusable, childish and frankly irrelevant to the happenings on track. I am glad to see that just about the entire paddock pulled together to take a stand against this, but equally, I’d like to see them do more. F1 has a lot to improve on when it comes to backing their ‘race as one’ catchphrase with actions. They need to do more against racism, sexism and ableism which plagues both the sport and the fanbase.
Then, after that heavy note, let’s go back to the action on track to address some of my dishonourable mentions. Formula 1 themselves might have stamped Valtteri Bottas as one of the winners for his “brilliant weekend” but the lack of pace compared to Hamilton and the poor starts do result in a dishonourable mention from me. I simply want and need him to do better. Relying on pit stop issues to get past a McLaren for the second-consecutive race is not a great look.
To be honest, Pierre Gasly pretty much asked to be put on the dishonourable mentions list. He found himself unable to explain why he wasn’t able to extract the maximum pace from their package this weekend and was frustrated with the fact that it was a battle to keep his car on track for each and every lap. He dragged the car into points to run ninth, only to then suffer a puncture which forced him to pit for a new set, ending up 11th instead. So close, but yet so far from points.
Next up on the calendar is the Hungaroring. The drivers will fly out to Mogyoród, Hungary for the 11th round of this jampacked calendar. The race itself will commence on Sunday the 1st of August at 2 pm UK time. This will also be the final round before the summer break, which is much needed considering the packed schedule for the second half of this breath-taking season.
