Britain in the rearview
Britons had their choice of excellent home drivers to support over the weekend!
‘In the rearview’ isn’t a true recap, just my thoughts over the weekend <3.
From the first practice session to the final lap, this was Mclaren’s weekend! Max qualified P1, of course, but with the upgrades putting Lando and Oscar in P2 and P3, Mclaren looked about as far from their Bahrain performance as possible. Seriously, it drives like a totally different car; no matter how much the drivers talk about the weaknesses, it’s clear the team has come so far.
We had a Brit lead the British Grand Prix for a few laps, and two Brits ended up on the podium (Max P1, Lando P2, and Lewis P3)! Oscar Piastri validated the ‘rookie of the year’ props by finishing in P4 and going wheel-to-wheel with Max! Checo still didn’t make it to Q3! Ferrari strategy was awful!
All in all a fun, surprising, and classic race with something for everyone to enjoy :D.
Mclaren owned the track this weekend!
Hi Mika Hakkinen. I have to change from a partial apology to a full, desperate plea for forgiveness, because you were so right. A P2 and P3 qualifying and a P2 and P4 finish for Mclaren was unthinkable just a few weeks ago. Leading a race from Max? Not a chance. Except… that’s exactly what happened. And Hakkinen did predict it. So sorry, man—next time, I’ll listen.
Lando got a well deserved Driver of the Day to go along with his P2 finish. It was his best weekend in years, and I can’t imagine the joy he must’ve felt giving that level of performance at his home track! It was so lovely to see how the fans embraced him and gave him all sorts of support. I can’t imagine there’s anything like it.
His defense from Hamilton (on objectively worse tires at first) was some of the best defending I’ve ever seen. He got the perfect safety car restart and manage to stay ahead without use of DRS, even when Hamilton had it. Absolutely incredible, no notes, oh my god.
Oscar’s weekend was also incredible. He only had half of the total Mclaren upgrade package (he didn’t get their new front wing) and yet he matched Lando all weekend. Honestly, without the safety car, he almost certainly would’ve been P3. The British crowd also really embraced him, as Lando’s teammate and as himself, and it was great to see. The chants of “OOOOSCAR PIASTRIIII” to go along with the “LANDOOOO” surprised me, but in a good way.
I’m so happy to see his talent, after him having to sit out for a year. The smirk on his face when an interviewer told him Mclaren had passed Alpine in the Constructor’s Championship was so satisfying (plus Alonso in the background for that question. Leaders of the Alpine hate club!). He also did a shoey with Lando on the main stage after the race, which made me so happy to see!!!!!! I’m so glad someone’s keeping the Australian energy alive on the grid :D.
Finally, I think I’ve figured out the secret to Mclaren’s success. They scored their first points of the year by a red-flags-and-crashes miracle in Australia, where Oscar’s grandmother had made baked goods for the team. They got their first podium here in Silverstone, where Lando’s grandparents (not Oscar’s! Sorry SkySports graphics people) came to the race. What does this mean?
Mclaren are at their best when they have grandparents in their garage!
Steady, reliable showing from Williams—exactly what they needed
Williams, very quietly, had another solid, points scoring weekend. It wasn’t flashy success like Mclaren, or abysmal collapse, like Ferrari—it was steady, it was dependable, and it was, perhaps most importantly, replicable.
Alex Albon finished 8th, making it two points finishes in the last three races. He’s quickly becoming one of the steadiest drivers on that grid, pulling the finicky Williams into good performances each time. He didn’t get much recognition at Silverstone, despite the fact that it’s one of his home races, which makes me sad. If Spa is one of Max’s home races, despite him racing under the Dutch flag, Silverstone is one of Alex’s, Thai flag or not!
Logan got the upgrades this week and showed marked improvement in practice! He finished P11, though a few more laps or better qualifying (he had a few laps deleted) and he could’ve moved into the points. All in all, it’s looking like Logan is steadily improving. While he didn’t quite live up to my points scoring prediction, I’m confident that if Williams continue to nurture him (and develop their car) he’ll go far.
Williams have a lot of disadvantages to the rest of the grid. Just look at that picture of their totally flat floor, or listen to James Vowles talk about how they didn’t have a parts database when he came in. But, surprisingly, they have a few advantages too.
First, there’s the team itself, led by James Vowles and the two drivers Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant. They’re all committed to the team and have a shared vision of what Williams should be. It’s impressive. Second is their speed. Despite all the development issues, somehow that car can pull out massive speed. Third is their engine. It’s a steady, reliable Mercedes engine, which automatically puts them at an advantage to Haas and Alpha Romeo and their persnickety Ferrari engine.
All in all, there’s great potential for Williams throughout the rest of the season. I’m excited to see where they go, and confident that it’ll start looking even more up for that team soon! Their home race at Silverstone was a quiet, solid victory for the team, and I hope they get the chance to celebrate it.
The sprint race was held under wet conditions, and it was predictably unpredictable! Fred Vesti won from reverse-grid pole to extend his lead in the championship, with Theo Pourchaire in second and Jack Doohan in third.
The big events in this race all centered around Ollie Bearman, the home favorite, who stormed through the field in the beginning and was putting on a masterclass in the wet. Unfortunately he had a spin, which undid most of his advance, but he kept it out of the wall and kept going.
Then he started battling with Doohan for position. It was an interesting battle because Ollie was defending, while Jack was complaining. There were so many radio messages begging for Ollie to get a penalty. One that never came because, while he was racing with elbows out, he was just… racing.
Unfortunately Ollie locked up and fell down the order again, allowing Doohan and some others through, but it mercifully put an end to Jack’s radio messages.
I know Victor Martins won the F3 championship last year, but he hadn’t impressed me in F2—until this feature race.
It was a messy, messy feature race, with 3 safety cars and what felt like more safety car laps than racing laps. Seriously, there were 11 laps under the safety car in a 29 lap race. It really felt like a start-stop race until the restart on lap 19, after which it was uninterrupted until the end.
The feature race was devastating for Prema, with Bearman nowhere to be found and Vesti getting his suspension broken through no fault of his own. He was bumped around during the first safety car restart, snapping his suspension and resulting in the Championship leader’s retirement. Ollie got one of the most ridiculous penalties I’ve ever seen: a 5s time penalty for being next to the two Campos drivers when they crashed into each other, which dropped him P6 to P8.
But Victor Martins drove what might’ve been the race of his life. He started from pole but fell back for a bit, only to regain the lead and maintain it for the rest of the race. Even after getting a 5s time penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage, he put in fastest lap after fastest lap to pull an over five seconds ahead of Zane Maloney in P2. That NEVER happens in F2. He really decided to show his stuff.
Martins finished P1, time penalty and all, with Maloney in P2 and Theo Pourchaire keeping his championship hopes alive by finishing P3.
Was this weekend all Matita Binotto’s fault? (no, but it’s funny to say)
Mattia Binotto was in the paddock on Friday, so of course Charles Leclerc’s car spontaneously caught on fire. Just jokes, but it was clear from the beginnings of practice that Ferrari was not going to have a good weekend. They were one of the only teams that didn’t bring any upgrades, and it became clear in FP1 that their run of being “best of the rest” was coming to the end.
In FP2, Charles set no time because an electrical issue set his car on fire. This was a weekend where as much running as possible was necessary because of the new tires, so it was honestly the worst possible weekend for that to happen.
The mixed conditions of FP3 made it an interesting session, and at one point Charles stayed out on slicks when everyone else pitted because the track was wet. It was especially terrifying because Charles is not known as a master of wet weather like some of the other drivers. Xavi was practically begging him to box on the radio, and eventually he did, thank god.
It was qualifying when things really intensified for the two Ferrari drivers. There was a lot of swapping, team orders on the radio, and snipping back at their engineers. In the end, Carlos ignored team orders and overtook Charles and a few other cars so he could get a final flying lap in Q3—according to him, he didn’t think he would make it before the checkered flag otherwise. This prompted a sarcastic message from Charles on the radio, and a long debrief and some PR saving-face afterwards.
Things did not improve during the race, with the Ferraris ultimately finishing in P9 and P10. Points, but the lowest possible points, with a Williams right behind. They had the lowest minimum speed during the race, which doesn’t show a whole picture of total performance but is a fairly good indicator.
Ultimately, you can have driver drama OR a bad car, but not both! Having both is just tacky. Ferrari need to choose a struggle… and maybe stop Mattia Binotto from coming to another race, just in case.
Just the bits
I don’t have anything left to say about Perez, really. Missing Q3 for a fifth time while your teammate is consistently putting it on pole? Yeesh. I know Marko keeps saying “there’s no one to replace him with!” but I don’t know, you could replace him with one of Max’s cats and get a similar performance. It’s just so over dude.
Shakira was at Silverstone and Lewis got on the podium! She has such a magical effect on him it’s very interesting. If they’re not dating I won’t be sad, because they’re celebrities I don’t know, but I do think we’d be missing out on a cute couple.
Daniel was at the race and once again we got some of the best Red Bull PR videos of all time. It’s his brand at this point! We also got another Checo ‘Live Slug Reaction’ to Maxiel shenanigans, which is always fun.
I know they said there wouldn’t be an announcement about Hamilton’s contract, but, man… there really wasn’t an announcement about Hamilton’s contract. Please hurry it up guys, Silly Season is gonna be stressful enough as it is!
Alpine’s double DNF isn’t a death knell for them, but it’s certainly not a good look. It was so unfortunate that the Stroll and Gasly collision ended with Gasly’s suspension being broken, and having to retire Ocon was devastating. But the most curious thing about Alpine, however, was the weird interaction between Pierre and Carlos in the media pen—did Gasly really say “don’t push me like that, Carlos.” And if he did: why?
Now THAT was a fun race. Great fans, great racing, and some interesting results. Today (when this comes out) is Daniel’s Pirelli test, so look out for updates from that, and keep an eye out for whatever insane thing Helmut Marko will say next. Can Mclaren keep up this form in Hungary? Will Logan finally score points? There’s a week break between races this time, so we won’t find out until the weekend of the 21st. I’ll see y’all then!
Pourchaire really capitalizing on Vesti's bad luck this wknd...Man, if you want a title battle, come to F2