Silverstone, United Kingdom – Formula One fans were treated to a race for the ages as England’s unpredictable summer gave Oracle Red Bull Racing and the rest of the paddock difficult strategy decisions with bouts of strong winds, rain and sunshine.
As the lights went out, Lando Norris in his McLaren struggled for grip off the line trailing Pole Sitter George Russell. Max Verstappen starting from fourth managed to dart of the line to take third from Norris as they went through Turns 3 and 4 behind the two Mercedes of Russell and Lewis Hamilton.
Further back, Checo started from the pit lane on Hard tyres after changing engine elements overnight. Checo quickly latched onto the back of the field and by lap seven Checo was past Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas and Alpine’s Esteban Ocon and into 17th place.
With radars showing rain on the horizon, drivers managed their tyres and by lap 14 Russell was 1.5 seconds clear of Hamilton, while Max had let the gap to the Mercedes spread to 4.5s and Norris was just under a second behind.
On lap 15, Norris took advantage on the run to Stowe and managed to pass the World Champion under DRS. The Dutchman reported back to the team that he was struggling on Medium tyres. Max’s pace was now flagging and on lap 17 Piastri made the same move into Stowe and Max slipped to fifth as rain began to fall across Silverstone.
Russell, out in front, was beginning to struggle in increasingly treacherous conditions and on lap 18 Hamilton roared past his team-mate to take the lead. Russell tried to fight back and at the start of lap 19 both Mercedes drivers went off at Turn 1. That allowed Norris to slip past Russell and on the following lap the McLaren driver muscled past Hamilton on the pit straight to take the lead.
Both McLaren’s now appeared to have some additional grip compared to the other front runners. Piastri was able to dart past both Mercedes and rose into second place. The Team meanwhile pitted Checo for Intermediate tyres with the possibility of heavy rain arriving, but the conditions appeared to improve and the Mexican radioed in that the track was too dry for his current set of Inters.
Max was now 10 seconds off the lead and running nearly one-second slower than the cars in front. Rain began to fall once more so Max and the Team made an early call to pit for Intermediate tyres.
Norris then pitted from the lead at the end of lap 27, followed by both Mercedes. That briefly propelled Piastri into the lead on Medium tyres, but when the Australian pitted on the following lap the time lost on track on the wrong tyre dropped him back to sixth place.
Russell, the victim of a stacked Mercedes stop, also lost time and after the leaders’ switch to Inters had played out, Norris led Hamilton with Max now up into third and with GP telling the champion he had made a great call for Inters and that he was “back in the race”.
Having fitted Inters too early, the Checo was forced to pit for a second set of the green-banded tyres and he rejoined in 17th place. The short but heavy band of rain passed and conditions improved as the race entered its final third which that sparked a move back to slick tyres across the teams.
On lap 38, Hamilton and Max came in, the Mercedes taking Softs and Max and his RB20 moving to Hard tyres. Norris stayed out, and the delay cost the McLaren driver dearly. Slower on his in-lap on Inters and then overshot his box cost him further. The Briton rejoined on Soft tyres as Hamilton swept through to take the lead once again.
The race and its constantly changing conditions meant that all the front runners had their moments of ascendancy. Now it was time for the World Champion. With 11 laps to go the champion was just 2.7s behind Norris, on the more durable tyre, and lapping quicker than the pair ahead of him.
Over the next seven laps, the champion chased down Norris and on lap 48 Max got a good launch out of Chapel opened his rear wing and out-dragged Norris down the Hangar Straight before sweeping past the McLaren around the outside through Stowe to a roar of approval from the Red Bull Energy Station in the Paddock.
With three laps to go, Max was just three seconds behind Hamilton. With a few more laps the result might of gone the way of the Dutchman. Although Max managed to halve the gap, Hamilton held on to take a ninth British Grand Prix win and the new record for most wins at a single circuit. After a tricky race for pit stop strategy, Checo only managed to come home in 17th.
No win for the World Champion on this occasion but happy with the result Max Verstappen said, “It was difficult today to manage especially with the rain, but looking at pure performance we were too slow in the first stint and overall struggled with tyre degradation. At one point it was looking like we might finish P5 or P6, but we made all of the right calls, especially with pitstops, and that put us back into contention.
“When it started to rain we didn’t want to take too much risk as I was already struggling with grip, and the Team also put the hard tyre on at the end and that definitely saved my race as I was the only one on the hard tyre and was able to really push.
“Out of a tough situation we still finished second, and extended our Championship leads, and that of course is a very strong result for us. We’re halfway through the season now and we have a bit of work to do still to finish the season where we want to be.”
Out of the points at Silverstone and keen to move on quickly, Sergio Pérez said, “This is a day to forget, nothing really worked for us, we gambled initially to try and go for it and unfortunately, we didn’t have what we needed today.
“We took a risk on the intermediate tyre early on, thinking there was going to be more rain, more quickly and it was just too early, we lost a lot of ground and the tyre was completely gone. We were out of position for the whole race, and it was really difficult to manage the race.
“I am very disappointed, but it is time to move forward, I am happy there is a little break now, we need to regroup as a Team and do some important work. We need a clean weekend now, a weekend of progression to get back to our rhythm. Hungary and Belgium are weekends where we have to get back to our form.”
The Oracle Red Bull Racing Team now have a two-week break of on-track activities before returning on 21st July at the Hungaroring in Hungary.