F1: 5 Things We Learned From the British Grand Prix

The McLaren driver followed up his win in Austria a fortnight ago with his first British GP win at a rainy Silverstone. Crucially, he reduced the gap with teammate Oscar Piastri to eight points in the drivers’ standings ahead of the sport’s summer break.

The Australian finished second, and Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg scored his first Formula 1 podium after 239 career starts.

The chaotic race saw two Safety Car periods and two Virtual Safety Cars,  drivers skidding off the track due to the wet conditions, several DNFs, and strategy calls that either worked out or failed. We take a look at five things we learned from the 76th British GP:

5 – Carlos Sainz had another bad weekend. The Spanish driver finished 12th at Silverstone after his race was hampered by a clash with former teammate Charles Leclerc. Sainz’s front wing was damaged, and he dropped down to P12.

The 30-year-old driver has scored 13 points in 12 races; in comparison, teammate Alex Albon has 46. “It seems to be the story of my season so far, and it’s very annoying that different issues continue to impact our weekends,” Sainz said.

4 – Haas drivers clash on track. Ollie Bearman finished P11, one place outside the points, and teammate Esteban Ocon was P13 for the American team. But the team grabbed the headlines because their drivers clashed, sending both cars spinning. It’s a racing incident, but we’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again,” said Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu.

The team brought upgrades to Silverstone, and the car looked strong. However, Bearman’s performance Saturday was let down by Bearman’s crash at the pitlane entry under red flag conditions during third practice. He was handed a 10-place grid penalty and started P18. It was disappointing for both drivers to finish outside of the points places, but the team will look forward to Belgium in a few weeks.

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3 – Ferrari’s weekend went backwards. The Italian team had the quickest car in first and third practice. However, they could only qualify on the third row of the grid, which comprised their race. Charles Leclerc came into the pits at the end of the formation lap to switch from inters to a set of medium tyres, thus starting the race from the pit lane. The Monegasque driver dropped down too far and got tangled up in the midfield, finishing a disappointing 14th. While Hamilton had a much better race, he couldn’t pass Hulkenberg and earn a podium finish in front of the home fans. “Third place felt within reach at times, but credit to Nico on his first podium, he drove a strong race,” Hamilton said.

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2 – Hulkenberg ends 15-year wait for podium.  It’s safe to say the F1 paddock was glad to see the German driver finally stand on the podium. Hulkenberg started in P19 and made up 16 places to score 12 points and help the Swiss team to sixth spot in the constructors’ standings.

Their race strategy and tyre choices at critical moments paid dividends, but Hulkenberg displayed heroic driving to keep Lewis Hamilton at bay in the last 10 laps and secure an emotional first podium appearance.

1 – Was Piastri’s 10-second penalty justified? Norris won the race by five seconds, and Piastri was handed a 10-second penalty by the stewards for erratic driving behind the Safety Car. Max Verstappen took evasive action to avoid crashing into Piastri at the restart.

The data showed that the Australian had executed the same act during the first Safety Car period, and the stewards had opted not to penalise the McLaren driver. However, Piastri’s luck ran out, and he was demoted to P2 when he served the penalty during the final pit stops.