Formula 1: 2023 British Grand Prix review

Ella Bebbington

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The British Grand Prix is a home race for many drivers and teams. Lewis Hamilton, George Russell, and Lando Norris all celebrated their home Grand Prix last weekend, with teams such as Aston Martin, Williams Racing, Alpine, and McLaren celebrating alongside them. 

Ahead of the weekend, McLaren revealed a special chrome livery to acknowledge their 60th year in Formula 1, while Williams revealed their new livery to celebrate their 800th Grand Prix start. Additionally, both Logan Sargeant and Oscar Piastri received the upgrades their teammates ran at the previous Grand Prix.

FREE PRACTICE

FP1

With the Williams of Alex Albon being the first car out onto the track, the green light for the session was given.

The first few laps remained uneventful, with each driver doing laps to warm up their tyres and the occasional flying lap to get a time onto the board. Only one minor incident occurred when Nyck de Vries took a brief trundle off the track into the gravel, but he recovered quickly to continue his session.

“It’s like driving on ice.”

Hamilton and Max Verstappen both complained about a lack of grip, with Verstappen saying on team radio, “It’s like driving on ice.”

Sargeant was the first driver to complete a lap on the soft tyres with Carlos Sainz not far behind. After this, the likes of Esteban Ocon (Alpine) and Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) topped the times consecutively until Verstappen secured P1 not long after them. His teammate was on his tail – Sergio Perez finished P2 with only 0.448s splitting the two.

Haas had a quiet session, finishing P19 and P20, whilst Piastri was unable to run his full session due to a hydraulic leak in his McLaren, which prompted his early finish.

The final top three were: P1 Verstappen – 1:28.600, P2 Perez – 1:29.048, and P3 Albon – 1:29.089.

FP2

Carlos Sainz, the winner of last years British Grand Prix, looked magnificent heading into FP2, only being beaten by the Red Bull of Verstappen with a slim margin of 0.022s between them. However, down at Ferrari, Sainz’s teammate Leclerc was unable to run his car due to an electrical issue which saw no time set and a P20 for the Monegasque driver. For the home heroes it was a difficult session, with Russell P12, Norris P14, and Hamilton P15.

The unforeseen stars of FP2, however, were both the Williams cars, with Albon finishing P3 for the second consecutive session and Sargeant finishing P5, a result even driver Albon did not expect. He later admitted it was somewhat surprising for the team. In an interview with F1 he said:

“It was a bit surprising in some ways. I have to say unexpected, you know. We’re not playing around doing weird things, it’s just a normal day for us.

“Clearly, we crossed the line and we’re in the top three, so a bit of – in some ways – head scratching, but at the same time the car feels good.”

The final top three were: P1 Verstappen – 1:28.078, P2 Sainz – 1:28.100, and P3 Albon – 1:28.296.

FP3

After a painful practice session, Leclerc headed back out onto track to achieve P1.

Wet conditions dominated free practice 3 on Saturday, a stark contrast to the dry and sunny conditions of the practice sessions the day before. A break in the weather meant the first 25 minutes of the session allowed for soft tyres and drivers to run quick laps. However, the rain was quick to come in which caused the remainder of the session to be wet. Red Bull ended up the only team to not get a time in on the soft tyres.

“improvement in each of the British driver’s positions”

Williams continued to impress, with both drivers placing an impressive P2 and P7, seeing Albon in the top 3 in all practice sessions. However, down at Alfa Romeo, Zhou Guanyu failed to run at all due to a charging issue with his car.

We also saw improvement in each of the British driver’s positions, with Hamilton, Norris, and Russell all improving their times.

The final top three were: P1 Leclerc – 1:27.419, P2 Albon – 1:27.592, and P3 Alonso – 1:27.784

QUALIFYING

Q1: For this session, DRS was disabled due to the wet track conditions. After two minor incidents, with Hamilton going into the gravel and Sargeant going onto the grass, all drivers remained in qualifying until the Haas of Kevin Magnussen stopped on track with three minutes to go. This resulted in a red flag. After a tense restart to the session, we saw a fifth consecutive fail for Perez to get to Q3 and Bottas stopping on track as he lost power.

The first five eliminated were: 20 Magnussen, 19 De Vries, 18 Zhou, 17 Tsunoda, and 16 Perez.

Q2: For the entirety of the session, Bottas remained in the garage and solidified P15 for his start on Sunday. Ferrari took a bold move in their strategy and waited until the very end of the session to set their lap times, which proved a good strategy as both drivers advanced to Q3. Ocon missed out on Q3 after a brief squabble with Lance Stroll saw him go off track and miss out on the chance to start a flying lap in preferred conditions.

The next five eliminated were: 15 Bottas, 14 Sargeant, 13 Ocon, 12 Stroll, and 11 Hulkenburg.

Q3: Crucially, DRS was enabled for Q3. An outstanding session saw both McLaren cars soar to the front two rows with Norris P2 and rookie teammate Piastri P3, the best qualifying for the team this season. The duo were greeted with cheers from the crowds as they completed their cool down laps. Can they continue this on race day?

The top 10 were: 1 Verstappen, 2 Norris, 3 Piastri, 4 Leclerc, 5 Sainz, 6 Russell, 7 Hamilton, 8 Albon, 9 Alonso, and 10 Gasly.

RACE DAY

As the British Grand Prix got underway, a set of thrilling opening laps saw Norris lead the pack until Verstappen overtook him a few laps in. Still, the McLaren kept on his tail, with Norris’ teammate Piastri not far behind. This was the order for the beginning of the race, with Ocon retiring from the race on lap 10.

Surprisingly, the McLarens pulled away from the Ferraris quickly, and comfortably stayed out in front until Kevin Magnussen stopped on track due to an engine failure. As he got out of the car, the virtual safety car was deployed, which quickly tuned into a full safety car. This allowed for the pack to pull closer together and brought many drivers into the pits, including Verstappen and Norris.

McLaren had an interesting strategy, opting for the hard tyre on their cars as opposed to the sea of red the soft tyres gave the rest of the grid. This strategy proved to work for the team, as Norris was able to pull away from Hamilton after the safety car restart and a few laps of brilliant defending from the Brit.

“Sainz loses three places in a matter of five corners…”

In the closing laps of the race, Sainz lost three places in a matter of five corners to Leclerc, Albon, and Perez. With both Ferraris losing five places from their starting positions, it was not a good weekend for Ferrari.

They did better than other teams though. Alpine had a double DNF with Gasly retiring towards the end of the race after a knock with Stroll appeared to damage his front suspension. A disappointing result for the Enstone-based team.

On the podium at the British Grand Prix: P1 Verstappen, P2 Norris, and P3 Hamilton.

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Featured image courtesy of PRAT Clement via Pexels. No changes made to this image. Image license found here.