The Briton Lando Norris won this Sunday the Grand Prix of Great Britain of Formula 1, ahead of his Australian teammate at McLaren, Oscar Piastri, still leader in the championship. The German Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber), 3rd, won him his first podium in the elite after 239 GP at 37.
On a route made very trashy by the showers, the McLaren still dominated the debates, despite a 10 -second penalty inflicted on Piastri, considered guilty of an offense under the security car regime while he was at the top of the race.
“I’m not going to say more, I don’t want to have any problems,” reacted Piastri, the mine closed a few moments to get on the podium. “Apparently, we can no longer brake behind the security car,” he rags.
“It’s magnificent (…) It was an incredible race, stressful as always, but the support of fans made the difference,” savor Norris, who won his national GP, 12th round (out of 24) for the season. Imperial at home, the Englishman made no mistake and signs his fourth victory of the year, the second in row after the GP of Austria at the end of June.
With this new double (the fifth of McLaren in 12 GP this season), the English team flies away a little more from the manufacturers’ championship and now has 238 points ahead of Ferrari, 2nd.
Among the pilots, Oscar Piastri sees his teammate Norris, 2nd. The Dutchman Max Verstappen, 5th in the GP, remains 3rd general but is now 69 points behind the leader.
Max Verstappen goes to the fault
Starting in pole position, Max Verstappen managed to stand up to the powerful McLaren who rushed right behind him. Until the 8th round (out of 52), when Piastri – 2nd on the grid – doubled the Dutch on a drying track, after the rain fallen until a few minutes before departure.
Drying, the track will not have stayed long, however, requiring the intervention of a first security car deployed because of the returned rain. Then a second after the trip of the French track of the French Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls), who came to hang the back of the Mercedes by Andrea Kimi Antonelli in a reduced to nothingness. The two pilots had to abandon.
At the revival of the race for the 21st round, the title champion Max Verstappen made a rare pilot error which made him demotize in 10th place when he was 2nd. At the wheel of a “inconstable” Red Bull, the Dutchman never managed to return to the leading pilots. “I did not have the pace,” he said on Sunday evening, but we made the right decisions at the right time (…) We finished 5th, that’s probably what we could do better. “
He finished behind the king of Silverstone Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari), who once again fails at the foot of the podium this season. For his first race at his home with Ferrari, the Septuple British world champion ends a series of 12 consecutive podiums on the legendary English circuit. “It was not the result I hoped,” said Hamilton. “The car was incredibly delicate to drive, but I learned a lot,” he also recognized.
Nico Hülkenberg heroic
Hamilton was notably deprived of podium in “his garden” by a Nico Hülkenberg Stratospheric on the English route. Starting from a very distant 19th place, the German notably resisted the pressure of Hamilton to offer himself – under the found sun – his first podium in Formula 1 after 239 GP disputed since 2010. Statistically, never a pilot had counted so many races without podium.
“I don’t know what happened in these crazy conditions, we had to survive. We made good calls at the right time to stop at the stands, ”reacted the Sauber driver, which allows his team to go back to 6th place (out of 10) in the championship.
Another feat: that of Pierre Gasly, who finished 6th after having left 8th place. The Frenchman offered an incredible resistance in nightmarish conditions and driving an alpine far from the best of the grid. This is the best classification of the team this season, which remains last in the manufacturers’ ranking.
The season continues with the traditional GP of Belgium, scheduled for the weekend of July 27 on the Spa-Francorchamps circuit, where F1 will return to Sprint mode on Saturday.
