Eight out of 10. Max Verstappen continues unstoppable towards his three-time championship with his eighth victory of the year, the sixth in a row. The Dutchman also crushed at Silverstone, where Lando Norris came to put him in trouble at the start, although only for five laps. This is how long the adventure lasted for the McLaren, who finished second, well-deserved silver, defended tooth and nail from the harassment of Lewis Hamilton, who closed the podium.
The Spanish performance was discreet. Better Fernando Alonso than Carlos Sainz. The Spaniard gained two positions from the start (from 9th to 7th) and was able to score good points on an adverse circuit for his Aston Martin, while the Spaniard, who started fifth, paid for an unfortunate strategy with hard tires that it relegated it to 10th place on the stage where it won last year.
A roar went through the stands of Silverstone, packed with fans (480,000 in total for the weekend), when Lando Norris messed it up at the start: the young Englishman from McLaren had the audacity to put himself first, to snatch the command from Max Verstappen from pole. The Dutchman started fatally, and Norris took advantage of it to throw himself in front of the race. His teammate Oscar Piastri was about to follow him, he put his nose into Red Bull, he was even on the inside, but the champion was anchored in second place.
Behind, Leclerc maintained fourth place, Russell overtook Sainz, sixth, and Alonso gained two positions, from 9th to 7th, with a good start, beating Hamilton and Albon.
The adventure did not last long for Norris, who in his career had only led for 31 laps in 2021. On this occasion, Verstappen let him pull for five laps. As soon as he was able to get the DRS out, the Dutchman cut him dry. He assumed the lead on lap 5, although he couldn’t distance himself from the two McLarens, who were going terribly well.
One of the animated duels was that of Alonso and Hamilton for seventh place. The Asturian, with less speed in the fast corners, masterfully blocked Hamilton’s attempts to put the nose in, but he held it for a short time, until the Englishman passed him on lap 7 with relative ease.
The race entered an anodyne phase pending possible rain. Verstappen began to build a wall of distance, with 4 seconds on Norris (v. 18/52), while Leclerc, fourth, did not seem to qualify for the podium, too far behind Piastri (4.6s). Neither Sainz nor Hamilton nor Alonso were pressing, although Gasly did sneak up on the Asturian.
The first to make a move on the strategy was Ferrari, who put the hard rubber on Leclerc (v. 19) to shoot until the end. “Don’t worry about the moment, Max”, they reassured the Dutchman, who had observed the tactical movement. Sainz repeated the tactic (hard) on lap 27; he would have to come back from 12th position, without stopping until the finish line.
The move went wrong for Leclerc, who was passed by Russell (in socks), on lap 32. He was down in 8th place.
The script was blown up when Magnussen’s Haas caught fire due to an engine break (v. 33), so the Safety-car appeared and those who had not stopped yet (Verstappen, Norris, Hamilton, Alonso) took the opportunity to change their free stop tires: saved 11 seconds.
The result, after the dance of pending stops, was a salad of compounds and that Verstappen (soft) maintained first place, Norris (hard) second, Hamilton (soft) rose to third to the detriment of Piastri (hard), fourth, Russell (medium) was fifth and Alonso (soft) was sixth, ahead of Sainz (hard) and Pérez (soft). 18 laps left.
At the resumption of the race (v. 38/52), when the safety-car withdrew, the ban on attacks by those wearing softer compounds was opened. Thus, Hamilton slit Norris’s throat, hard. The McLaren car defended itself very well to keep the second position. A very tough duel, in parallel, side by side, in which Lewis had to give in and lift his foot to avoid ending up off the track. “The McLaren is very fast on hard tyres, it’s impressive,” Russell was surprised on the radio.
The other duel of compounds was lived in the Ferrari. Sainz, with hard, had to give in to Leclerc (medium) and Gasly (soft), so the man from Madrid dropped to 11th position, although he recovered 10th from the Frenchman a few corners later.
In turn, Alonso lost the battle with Sergio Pérez’s Red Bull, who snatched sixth place from him with a more efficient car in the fast corners of Silverstone.
With this eighth victory and the discreet results of his most direct rivals, Max Verstappen shoots into the lead with a 99-point advantage over Pérez and 118 over Alonso.
