SILVERSTONE, UK — Lando Norris won a wet and wild British Grand Prix at Silverstone, where his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri lost a race he had dominated due to a penalty for an incident involving polesitter Max Verstappen.
Behind, there were storylines galore as Nico Hülkenberg took a sensational first podium for Sauber on his 239th grand prix start, and denied the seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton a first podium for Ferrari.
The race featured two virtual and two real safety car periods, as rain that had soaked the track ahead of the start returned shortly into the 52-lap contest.
At the start, Verstappen and Piastri initially shot clear as Norris battled Hamilton, before a crash between Liam Lawson and Esteban Ocon meant the VSC was activated for the first time just as the second lap was starting. This was then reactivated a short time later when Gabriel Bortoleto crashed his Sauber.
After the second return to green flag racing, Piastri overtook Verstappen, with Norris closing in on the Dutchman and then getting by when the Red Bull slid off at Chapel. By this stage, the rain was falling hard again, and a slow pitstop for Norris — in a doublestack with Piastri — meant Verstappen got back by.
The soaking conditions meant the safety car was called out on Lap 14, and it had to come out for a second time when Isack Hadjar rear-ended Kimi Antonelli (who later retired) and crashed at Copse.
And it was at the second restart that the race-defining incident occurred.
As the safety car was moving clear to return to the pits, Piastri, braking hard, appeared to catch out Verstappen, and he overshot the leader while jinking around another potential rear-ending incident. Verstappen then spun at the next corner and dropped down the order, with the stewards handing Piastri a 10-second penalty he later called “not fair”.
The two McLarens shot clear of Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll and Hülkenberg, with Piastri initially blasting to a four-second lead as the second half of the race began. Norris then stopped the gap from increasing and then began to cut it down as the track finally dried again.
Norris was closing on DRS range behind Piastri when McLaren called the world championship leader in to take slicks on Lap 43 and serve his penalty. Norris’ shorter stop on the next lap meant he jumped to a lead he would not lose, as McLaren ignored Piastri’s request for team orders to swap the places back around.
“It’s beautiful,” cried Norris as he returned to the pits having secured his first home race victory in F1.
Hülkenberg held Hamilton off to seal third by five seconds. Verstappen, meanwhile, recovered to fifth having been 10th after his safety car spin.
The Athletic’s experts, Luke Smith and Madeline Coleman, run you down the main talking points from Silverstone. – Alex Kalinauckas
Piastri hands Norris his dream victory
So much of this weekend was geared around Lando Norris and his hopes of winning the British Grand Prix for the first time. At last, he’s realized that lifelong dream.
The Stowe grandstand was converted into the ‘Landostand’ for the weekend, colored fluorescent yellow in his honor and filled with his ardent fans. He said on Thursday this was the one race win he’d trade for all the others in F1 — but for so much of Sunday’s race, it looked like it wasn’t going to happen.
Instead, it was teammate and title rival Piastri who was poised to play party pooper, dominating the early stages in the wet. He was in total control prior to the first safety car period that wiped away his 13-second advantage. As he prepared to lead the field away for the restart after the second safety car, he slowed down too much, causing Verstappen to jolt ahead.
It landed Piastri a 10-second time penalty that would define the second half of his race.
By getting Piastri to serve his penalty, it spared Norris the strange feeling of crossing the line second but winning the race, which would not have been how he’d have wanted to score an emotional maiden British Grand Prix victory.
Piastri’s request to swap the positions back if the team thought the penalty was unfair went unanswered, leaving Norris to simply keep his head and cross the line for a storybook win at home — one that will serve as another huge shot in the arm for his title ambitions.
Luke Smith
The podium battle no one expected
After nearly 240 grand prix starts (238 technically), Hülkenberg did not have a podium finish. Sauber hasn’t exactly been a strong team in recent years, but it’s been getting more competitive as of late.
The rainy conditions mixed up the grid, and he gained 14 positions by the time a safety car was brought out for the mid-race rainstorm. Stroll was ahead of the Sauber driver, and Hülkenberg picked him off by Lap 34 heading into Stowe. But that didn’t mean the Sauber driver was free and clear for a podium finish. Hamilton was picking his way through the grid, passing Stroll for fourth a lap later into Turn 3.
It became a race between Hülkenberg and Hamilton for a podium finish: either the Sauber driver’s first or the seven-time world champion’s first with Ferrari.
Late in the race, Hülkenberg pitted for medium tires, and Hamilton switched to slicks on Lap 42. But after three laps, there was a 7.482-second gap between the drivers. Barring anything chaotic (which wasn’t completely out of the question given that the Haas drivers made contact and Charles Leclerc went off), Hülkenberg looked set for a podium finish, the McLaren drivers light years ahead of him (roughly 23 seconds by Lap 46).
Those final five laps dragged on, but by race end, Hamilton trailed the German driver by five seconds.
It’s a huge moment for the veteran driver and his team.
Madeline Coleman
A rare Verstappen error deals another title blow
Verstappen’s hopes of defending his F1 crown were already hanging by a thread going into the British Grand Prix following his first-lap retirement in Austria, then Silverstone cut them completely loose.
The Red Bull driver put in the kind of magic qualifying lap that has set him apart from his peers so many times recently to grab pole on Saturday. However, while the low-drag setup worked in the dry, it left him exposed in the wet — powerless to keep Piastri back in the early, damp stages.
Verstappen rarely makes mistakes. So to see his Red Bull pointing the wrong way after accelerating out of Stowe on the safety car restart was a surprise. Putting his foot down, the Dutchman had lost grip, causing him to spin and drop from second to 10th.
It relegated Verstappen to a frustrating second half of the race, stuck in the wheeltracks of Carlos Sainz. “I’m just so slow,” he complained on the radio. It took him 13 laps to finally pass the Williams and move up to ninth before the late swap to slicks shuffled the Red Bull driver up to sixth place. Even in the dry, he was frustrated, cursing about his car and calling it “undriveable.”
Verstappen has scotched all talk of the title for weeks now, chiefly down to the shortcomings of his car and the dominant pace of the McLaren. The pace may not have been there for the win on Sunday, but there was at least enough for a podium to limit the damage.
Instead, this will go down as another bump in a rocky season for Verstappen and Red Bull, with the hope of a turnaround that could get him back in the hunt seeming more distant than ever.
Luke Smith
Wet conditions bring chaos and questions
By the time we reached Lap 22, four drivers had retired, Leclerc and Oliver Bearman took mighty trips off track, Verstappen had spun on a restart, and the grid had seen multiple safety cars. Every retirement other than Franco Colapinto’s stemmed from crashes during the wet conditions.
The race was never red-flagged, but the visibility did look poor on the broadcast. On Lap 18, Hadjar rammed into the back of Antonelli, reporting over the radio, “I didn’t see him. I mean, he appeared out of nowhere.”
Both drivers retired from the race, and it shows the fine line of racing in wet conditions, given the visibility. Would it have been better to have a few more laps behind the safety car?
The mixed conditions, though, did allow the lower midfield teams to gain ground they otherwise might not have been able to do in a normal race. By Lap 32, Stroll and Hülkenberg were running third and fourth, though Hamilton was gaining ground behind.
In the end, Sauber gained the most from the conditions, with Hülkenberg securing a podium finish. Aston Martin achieved a double points finish, with Stroll finishing seventh and Fernando Alonso in ninth. And then there’s Alpine and Williams, with Pierre Gasly in sixth and Alexander Albon bringing home an eighth-place finish.
Madeline Coleman
Provisional race results (Top 10)
- Lando Norris, McLaren
- Oscar Piastri, McLaren
- Nico Hülkenberg, Sauber
- Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
- Max Verstappen, Red Bull
- Pierre Gasly, Alpine
- Lance Stroll, Aston Martin
- Alex Albon, Williams
- Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin
- George Russell, Mercedes
Top photo: Mark Thompson/Getty Images
