Formula one far on race track at British Grand Prix

Elisa Vicencio

The seven-time world champion  Lewis Hamilton takes a record-breaking ninth race victory at the British Grand Prix, over two years after his last race win.

Formula 1 returned to the world-class Silverstone circuit, following back-to-back races in Austria and Spain, in what was one of the most memorable grand prix of the season.

Throughout the triple header,  Verstappen’s dominance over the top teams has reduced. Both the McLarens and the Mercedes have demonstrated a pace that can not only compete but at times has been stronger than the Red Bull racer.

Mercedes, in particular, has shown clear improvement over the British Grand Prix. In a wet qualifying, the Brackley-based team were able to secure a front row lockout with Russell and Hamilton respectively. McLaren’s Norris also demonstrated a strong qualifying performance, securing an all-British top three. Meanwhile, Verstappen qualified in fourth place due to issues with the floor of his car.

Opening Laps

As the lights went out, polesitter Russell held off his teammate Hamilton, maintaining his lead over the rest of the grid. Norris, however, struggled with tyre temperatures. As a result, Verstappen overtook Norris into turn one, allowing the reigning world champion to take third place. Elsewhere, Charles Leclerc had a strong start, making up three places to take eighth.

Despite a promising start, it soon became clear that Verstappen’s Red Bull could not match the pace of the McLarens and Mercedes. Both Mercedes drivers built a gap to Verstappen whilst Norris was closing in on the Dutchman. Eventually, on Lap 16 Norris got into the Red Bull driver’s slipstream, swiftly overtaking Verstappen to take third place.  Norris’ teammate Piastri also passed Verstappen on the following lap, demonstrating the strong pace of the McLaren.

On Lap 18, Hamilton overtook his Mercedes teammate to take the lead of the British Grand Prix. On the following lap, both Mercedes went off at Abbey. Consequently, this allowed the McLaren driver to take the race lead on Lap 20 despite the low-grip conditions. His teammate Piastri soon followed in his footsteps, overtaking Hamilton on the same lap.

First Pit Stops

Despite Zhou Guanyu pitting first on Lap 13, most drivers opted to pit on Lap 20. This was when Hamilton was told on the radio that it may be time for the intermediate tyre due to the wet conditions. In response to this, the 7-time world champion expressed his disapproval of that decision. “There’s dry in a lot of places”, stated Hamilton. And so, the Mercedes driver did not pit at this time. Meanwhile, drivers further down the grid, such as Leclerc and Perez elected to pit. This decision backfired particularly for the Leclerc who emerged from the pits in 16th place after being in tenth place.

However, after the on-track conditions became wetter, Verstappen and Sainz pitted for the intermediate tyres. They were soon followed by Norris and the Mercedes drivers who pitted on the following lap. Despite the possibility of the double stack, McLaren opted to keep Piastri on track for an additional lap. As a result, Piastri lost multiple positions after pitting, coming out into sixth place. Simultaneously, his teammate Norris took the lead of the race followed by Hamilton and Verstappen in second and third place.

Unfortunately for Russell, his race abruptly ended on Lap 34 following a problem with the car’s water system in a disappointing end to what was a promising race weekend for the Brit.

Second Pit Stops

Due to the track drying out, the grid started to pit for slick tyres for their second pit stop on Lap 39. The drivers differed in their choice of tyre compound.  Hamilton opted to pit onto the soft tyre compound, whilst other frontrunners Verstappen and Piastri pitted onto the hard and medium tyre compounds. Meanwhile, Norris stayed out for an additional lap whilst his team asked him  whether he would like to pit onto the medium tyre compound to cover Verstappen or the soft tyre to cover Hamilton. “I think Hamilton or do you think medium I don’t mind”, the McLaren driver responded. And so the pit crew fitted the soft tyre compound onto his car, a decision that potentially influenced the race outcome.

Concluding Laps

Due to Norris’ slow pit-stop of 4.5 seconds, Hamilton narrowly took the lead of the race as Norris emerged back onto the track. The decision to pit for the hard tyre proved to be beneficial for Verstappen. The Dutchman was able to close in on the McLaren, overtaking Norris through Stowe to take second place.

Verstappen was then able to chase Hamilton for the victory in a nail-biting few laps. However, the 7-time world champion prevailed, crossing the line to take his 104th win in front of his home crowd. This marked Hamilton’s first win since Saudi Arabia 2021.

“The greatest feeling I can remember having”

It was an emotional victory for Hamilton, crying on the team radio after the race. “After such a difficult 2021, just trying to continue to come back but we as a team had a difficult time. There were so many thoughts and doubts in my mind along the way to the point, at times, I wanted to not continue. To arrive and continue to get up and continue to try and finally succeed is the greatest feeling I can remember having,” said Hamilton to Sky Sports in a post-race interview.

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Featured image courtesy of Jen Ross via Flickr. No changes have been made to this image. Image licence found here.

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