British F1 Grand Prix Review

Silverstone is an iconic track, and to match the status of the track, today’s victory was by none other than the Formula 1 icon himself; Sir Lewis Hamilton.

In a marked return to form for Mercedes, with 2 wins now in their pocket, one could question if their resurgency is enough to surpass the stumbling Ferrari, who have been drastically out of shape the last several races. However it is to mention that George Russell had to retire due to a water cooling failure and associated rising temperatures onboard.

Silverstone 2024 started with the early retirement of Alpine’s Pierre Gasly, who was called in to retire the car upon completion of the formation lap. George Russell’s Mercedes managed to hold on to his pole position through lap one, with Max Verstappen’s Red Bull overtaking Mclaren’s Lando Norris to gain 3rd position.

The rain was the great determiner during this session; elevating prompt strategists and showcasing blunders. Mclaren made the decision to not double-stack Norris and Piastri, electing to bring Norris in for a pitstop, and send Piastri around another lap. As the wet weather poured over the circuit, this would cause Piastri to lose 20 seconds during the lap, the equivalent to a full pit stop. Mercedes, in contrast, did double stack, and managed to continue the fight with Norris while dropping the Mclaren of Piastri. Charles Leclerc, Sergio Perez, and Zhou Guanyu had a disastrous run of things, switching to intermediate tyres well before the serious rain began, and in turn shredding them, leading to worse lap times and another pit stop.

William’s saw their best team performance of the season at Silverstone. After qualifying P9, Alex Albon managed to finish there despite sustaining some damage early in the race. Securing a solid 11th was Logan Sargeant.

Aston Martin had a solid race, landing themselves a double points finish for the fourth time this season. After a bit of a slump, those points are a welcome sight to the team as they fight to secure fifth in the Constructors Championship.

Haas under Ayao Komatsu are strong, with back to back P6’s now by way of Nico Hulkenberg securing 16 points for the constructor. As a fun fact, Hulkenberg has scored more points in these last two outings than Red Bull’s Sergio Perez has in the last 6.

While we’re on the topic of Checo Perez - beaching himself during qualification gave the team an excuse to change his car’s power unit. This change would force Perez to start from the pits, although that isn’t much of a hit here anyways, as he would have started 19th otherwise. He’s driving a championship winning car, by the way. There’s not much more to say about his performance other than his final position, which, admittedly may be partially Red Bull’s fault for putting him on intermediates well before they were needed. Regardless, he finished 17th, beating only Kick Sauber’s Zhou and finished 2 laps down.