Max Verstappen overtook Lando Norris for the lead and out-ran the McLaren driver to win an enthralling British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
The Red Bull driver lost the lead at the start to the McLaren driver but overtook him soon after. After a Safety Car period in the second half of the 52-lap encounter, Verstappen pulled a small gap to the McLaren and led him home to win by three seconds, with Lewis Hamilton completing the podium in third place.All of the top 10 drivers fitted the medium tyre for the start of the grand prix, save for sixth-placed George Russell who opted for softs. When the lights went out, Norris leapt ahead of pole winner Verstappen to take the lead into Abbey, as Oscar Piastri fought hard to pressure the Red Bull driver for second.
Hamilton ran wide at Village, dropping a pair of places to Fernando Alonso and Pierre Gasly. Piastri had a half-hearted look at Verstappen into Copse, but backed out and held third ahead of Charles Leclerc.
Verstappen broke clear of DRS from Norris on lap eight, with the leader informed that “light rain” was expected in a matter of minutes. The leader reported “light drizzle” at the start of lap 15, but was informed it was dissipate after a couple of laps. Verstappen slowly pulled away from the McLarens behind, opening up a lead of five seconds by the 22nd lap.
Piastri was the first of the leaders to pit at the end of lap 29 – well over half distance – fitting the hard tyres and emerging in sixth place, ahead of Alexander Albon and Charles Leclerc, who had pitted ten laps earlier from fourth.
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On lap 33, Kevin Magnussen came to a stop on the Wellington Straight with smoke and some licks of flame from the rear of his Haas. The Virtual Safety Car was deployed to help recover the Haas, just after the leaders had passed the pit entry. They would all pit by the end of the next lap, by which time the race was now under a full Safety Car. Verstappen and Hamilton were both fitted with soft tyres, but McLaren opted to put hard tyres on Norris.
The next lap, Hamilton looked to the inside of Norris at Luffield, but again the McLaren driver fended off the Mercedes. Despite DRS being activated the following time around, Hamilton appeared unable to get close enough to challenge Norris further, noting how fast the McLaren was in the high speed turns and down the straights.
Verstappen’s lead over Norris stabilised at around three-and-a-half seconds as the McLaren pulled out of DRS range of the pursuing Mercedes behind. With some drivers including Norris and Russell receiving black-and-white warning flags for three track limits strikes, Verstappen was told to keep pushing until the end.
He duly checked off the final laps to take the chequered flag and secure his sixth consecutive victory. Norris secured his and McLaren’s first podiums of the season, just over three seconds behind the winner, with Hamilton taking the final podium position in third. Piastri took his best-ever finish in fourth, ahead of Russell in the second Mercedes.
Sergio Perez climbed from 14th on the grid to finish sixth, with Fernando Alonso taking seventh place. Alexander Albon held onto eighth place for Williams, ahead of the two Ferraris of Leclerc and Sainz, who rounded out the top ten
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2023 British Grand Prix reaction
- Check back shortly for more race reaction
BW (@deliberator)
9th July 2023, 16:46
Both Ferraris finish behind a Williams.
Ouch.
Skett
9th July 2023, 16:50
Not for us Williams fans 😁
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
9th July 2023, 19:58
And some of us are used to ferrari and williams fighting, take 2001-2003!
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
9th July 2023, 19:59
And earlier ofc but I was too young to watch the 1997 season.
BW (@deliberator)
9th July 2023, 22:32
Well, if you think Ferrari strategy lacks sharpness these days, you would cringe if you watched the blunders Williams used to make back in the 1990s. I was a Williams supporter back then and I lost count of how many races they must have lost due to strategy.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
9th July 2023, 21:25
Get used to it. Rising from the Grove!
Niefer (@niefer)
9th July 2023, 16:56
A real shame that Piastri lost his maiden podium to a lacklustre drive by Hamilton today.
Ferrari keep showing their class.
I wonder if Mp4/4 will finally lose its mark.
Ben
9th July 2023, 16:58
This if F1! There are no gifts. Hamilton drove a slower car perfectly today. Incredible once again.
Spencer (@spencer)
9th July 2023, 17:10
He also drove demonstrably slower lap times, which without a healthy dose of luck would have seen him finish multiple positions below and behind his teammate. Given the fortuitous events that unfolded in his favor, I would say that it is disappointing considering on two compound soft tires, he could not overtake Lando. Let’s not pretend that the McLaren is a world, beater, and insurmountable.
Ben
9th July 2023, 17:12
The McLaren this race is easily second fastest. Mercedes this race were 5th fastest. Hamilton finished P3. Anyway you slice it that’s incredible.
Robert Henning
9th July 2023, 17:19
They all had similar pace today. Both Mercedes drivers underperformed in the qualifying, affecting track position and it is not easy to overtake around Silverstone.
Hamilton’s podium was lucky. There’s nothing wrong in that.
He had a poor drive today. Also nothing wrong in saying that.
melanos
9th July 2023, 17:19
Incredibly undeserved & totally gifted
MadMax (@madmax)
9th July 2023, 17:43
the stupidity of hamiltom anti fans here is stunning.
melanos
9th July 2023, 18:09
Personal attacks instead or arguments. That means you have lost. Come on, you are giving up too soon.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
9th July 2023, 20:06
Where’s the evidence merc was slower than ferrari, example, or aston?
melanos
9th July 2023, 17:18
Perfectly unable to overtake when it was needed. Perfectly unable to keep it between the track limits at the start losing two positions. Perfectly unable to beat his teammate on Saturday, and with a near disastrous gravel excursion in Q1. A below average drive today and the whole weekend, not even worthy of making the points today The only ridiculously incredible thing was Lady Luck, robbing Oscar of a well-deserved podium and George of finishing ahead after a better drive.
No gifts in F1? Well, the timing of the VSC/SC was a perfect gift, worth a podium.
Ben
9th July 2023, 17:21
he was P3 that’s 15 points. A perfect race from Hamilton to drag the 5th fastest car onto the podium. That’s why he’s a 7x world Champion
Nm
9th July 2023, 18:23
Lol 5th fastest car…
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
9th July 2023, 20:09
It’s ridiculous to say it’s 5th fastest car, why were both ferraris and aston in the midfield then?
Edvaldo
9th July 2023, 17:25
What does the gravel excursion on Q1 has to do with today’s race?
Max crashed on the pits yesterday, so his win today was undeserved because of that too?
melanos
9th July 2023, 18:04
The gravel excursion came pretty close to ruining the quali. Beach the car, start beyond P15; it is no picnic. It has everything to do with today’s race. And remember Shanghai’ hallowed gravel trap.
About Max, nobody has mentioned him here so far so if his win was or not deserved is quite a moot point. His understeer out of the pit was inexcusable and he was really lucky that there was no damage beyond the front wing which was easily repaired and that it was under red flag so there was no time lost. Really, a podium with Lando, Oscar and George would had been a lot more to my liking. I do not particularly favor any of them, but find them most deserving today.
Edvaldo
9th July 2023, 18:13
He didn’t beach the car and the session kept going as it should.
You’re just reaching.
melanos
9th July 2023, 18:14
Having said that, I would not have been too surprised if Max had started today from the back of the grid and won the race equally. It would have been a lot more entertaining also.
melanos
9th July 2023, 18:19
Well, and the VSC/SC timing was what it was and the race ended as it ended. And bears do () in the woods too. These are the facts and that’s alright. But I can call it lucky and undeserved if I feel like it. Including the non-beaching in the gravel also. You are welcome to differ.
stjs16 (@stjs16)
9th July 2023, 20:24
On the flip side He’s lost a championship on a poor SC call
A M (@amam)
9th July 2023, 20:31
All this WHINING about benefitting from the SC. I bet the whiners on here were singing a different tune when Max was GIFTED the 2021 title due to the SC – giving Masi the chance to make up his own rules in favour of Max
Niefer (@niefer)
9th July 2023, 17:18
LOL. Looks like someone’s gonna burn the candle by both ends.
bogaaaa (@nosehair)
9th July 2023, 23:27
Bad tyre call cost Oscar more so than SC
melanos
9th July 2023, 17:09
.
Or Alberto Ascari’s Ferrari 500 which won every race (except Indy 500 which he did not enter)
The fame of the McL MP4/4 is largely undeserved. As cars go, there have been plenty (about a dozen I’d say) more dominant. Beginning with the Ferrari Sharknose, and including recent Red Bulls and Mercs. The team (McLaren) and the drivers (Prost & Senna) had the most dominant season ever, but it was not all down to the car.
Niefer (@niefer)
9th July 2023, 17:25
You have a fair point, but a dozen? I can’t quite think of that many.
The thing with Mp4/4 is that was a perfect match.
The Sharknose is arguably the greatest example of wasted potential.
melanos
9th July 2023, 17:55
Remember also those active suspension Williams. And the early Merc’s of Fangio and Moss… I can bother now to go over all F1 history car by car now but honestly I don’t believe the MP4/4 makes the top ten as far as dominant cars go
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
9th July 2023, 20:14
Was indeed a very impressive car, they were winning races by 1 minute, I think it’d have done well even with weak drivers.
Edvaldo
9th July 2023, 17:20
Mclaren is at fault for this lost podium. Russell drove 30 laps on softs. Why did Mclaren think they should go to hards at that point?
If Piastri had softs on those last laps he could have passed Hamilton, they were just that much faster today to do that.
DaveW (@dmw)
9th July 2023, 17:39
They may have lost the win with the pace advantage they had on Verstappen on cold tires. It would have been tough to hold him off but Piastri and Hamilton could have kept him occupied for a few laps while Norris ran away.
melanos
9th July 2023, 18:47
Agree, it is unbelievable that well over half race and with a SC period ahead Macca and Fezza were too afraid to go softs, having seen George doing alright with softs from the beginning (and a full tank). Bad for the Maccas, Lando managed to defend but made it second so he was alright in the end (I don’t believe he could have seriously bothered Max with the softs) but Oscar lost the chance to attempt the overtake for the podium. And both Fezzas were ruined by the choice (that’s what we have come to expect from Fezza, sadly)
Steven Robertson (@emu55)
9th July 2023, 22:50
After the race, McLaren said they had the hard tyres ready as that was the strategy if there was a virtual safety car, when it changed to a full safety car they decided to stay with that strategy instead of risking confusion bringing out the softs (which has happened to other teams before).
peter
10th July 2023, 6:39
That’s quite some poor managment. All options should be kept open when hundreds of a second can make all the difference.
SteveP
9th July 2023, 17:31
Lower class? The meat in a Williams sandwich.
Sad fact, considering their long history in F1
Red Andy (@red-andy)
9th July 2023, 17:36
I was disappointed for Piastri too @niefer, but his time will come. Safety Car luck tends to cut both ways – Hamilton got lucky today (as he did at this track in 2019, for instance), but there have been many other occasions when he’s been the one with the poorly timed pit stop and lost track position as a result.
Yellow Baron
9th July 2023, 18:02
Lol it’s funny how some forget he lost an entire world championship due to an unlucky safety car + more. Where are these fans coming from? Rain drop racing?
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
9th July 2023, 20:25
This doesn’t hold ground at all: that was verstappen’s lucky break in 2021 and the rest of the season still makes it so hamilton had twice the luck verstappen had: 15 points gained in that occasion by verstappen, 45 the rest of the season by hamilton, result net 30 in hamilton’s favour. That’s not bad luck when you consider the whole 2021.
David West
9th July 2023, 23:11
They both had luck that season, Hamilton lost points due to “luck” in Russia, Turkey and others.
A M (@amam)
9th July 2023, 20:42
Max had his fair share of luck–like escaping disqualification for brake testing Lewis in SA, like being helped out by the red flag in SA, by being helped out by half the grid (Tsunoda, Alonso, Gasly, Perez) etc etc etc
It’s just UTTER HYPROCRISY for ANY MAX FAN to whine about drivers luck with the SC
drmouse (@drmouse)
10th July 2023, 8:03
Agreed. This is the first time I can remember in the past 2 seasons, at least, where Hamilton hasn’t been significantly disadvantaged by the timing of a safety car. He got a bit of good luck, but he still drove well despite struggling with a relatively slow car.
David West
9th July 2023, 18:22
Hamilton did what he needed to do for a podium, Piastri didn’t. Simples.
osnola
9th July 2023, 18:42
Piastri did nothing wrong and Lewis was the lucky one
bogaaaa (@nosehair)
9th July 2023, 23:34
Tyres and SF aside ,Oscar showed the F1 world what a talent he is, l look forward to see him racing the same spec car as Norris. Wonder if the RB rumours are true?
melanos
9th July 2023, 18:49
Really, is it what they did? or what happened to them?
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
9th July 2023, 20:26
Indeed, I don’t understand why it’s so hard for some people to understand when luck plays a part, no matter which driver is involved.
A M (@amam)
9th July 2023, 20:36
Well you guys should know about Luck—that sc in AD 2021 gave Masi the chance he was waiting for to gift the title to max
Rom
9th July 2023, 16:58
Ferrari needs to do fan experiences cause I feel I can pick a random guy out in the Silverstone crowd and he’ll do a better job than Ferrari’s strategists.
DaveW (@dmw)
9th July 2023, 17:36
Safety car was outside track limits. How did Ocon escape a penalty?
seriously there were so many warnings being given in the last few laps for Norris and Russell to name two I would not be surprised if someone brought a challenge over uncounted violations. I saw Leclerc clearly go over at 14 near the end with not a peep from stewards for example. I’ll be checking race results again in a few hours.
Ω (@omega)
9th July 2023, 20:27
It would have been so funny to see Bernd Mayländer time deleted pop up at the top of the screen, but alas no such humor.
Lando
9th July 2023, 17:49
Great job by Max, he had to work for it, but came out on top …again. Superb!
MacLeod (@macleod)
10th July 2023, 8:01
Did you notice the title it almost sounded like Lando was on pole Lewis Second and Max had to overtake them what he did it seems. ……..
Title should be Lando beats Max at the startline but had to overtake him to win the GP and Lewis took third.
David West
9th July 2023, 18:23
Looks like the RB advantage has come down a little, another step forward from McLaren like the one we just witnessed and they can fight for wins.
osnola
9th July 2023, 18:49
The advantage is for a large part due to the driver.
melanos
9th July 2023, 18:55
Still I believe someone is going to need a little luck. Or more probably some misfortune or momentary brain f@rt from Max (well yesterday he had one in Q1 but was lucky it didn’t count).
Also Max’s start today was not good but everybody knew that once the Dumb Race System was on Lando would be a sitting duck. The only thing Max lost was another Grand Chelem. Still I believe that by the end of next season Max will have topped Jim Clark’s record.
melanos
9th July 2023, 18:56
Still I believe someone is going to need a little luck. Or more probably some misfortune or momentary brain f@rt from Max (well yesterday he had one in Q1 but was lucky it didn’t count).
Also Max’s start today was not good but everybody knew that once the Dumb Race System was on Lando would be a sitting duck. The only thing Max lost was another Grand Chelem. Still I believe that by the end of next season Max will have topped Jim Clark’s record.
A M (@amam)
9th July 2023, 20:21
It hasn’t come down! Max was 10s ahead of Norris before the sc.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
9th July 2023, 20:28
With such an advantage I don’t think norris could realistically hold him off if he had defended harder as I was hoping.
David West
9th July 2023, 23:13
It’s come down.
Max’s fastest lap on softs was barely 3 tenths quicker than Norris on hards. Had McLaren gone with softs to the end I think Norris could have matched Max, the difference was straight line speed.
It may be track specific of course.
MichaelN
10th July 2023, 0:12
The McLaren has been rather good in high speed corners for a few years now. It’s a bit of a characteristic of their designs (Norris spoke about this at length in the recent F1 Beyond the Grid interview). Norris was also 4th for much of last year’s race here, but fell back a bit towards the end to finish 6th. And even in 2021 with the previous spec cars, Norris was 3rd for a long time, eventually finishing 4th with Ricciardo actually taking 5th.
drmouse (@drmouse)
10th July 2023, 14:51
I’m not so sure it has come significantly. We’ve seen several races where the final gap has been around the 10s mark, and small difference between the fastest laps towards the end could have been down to the behaviour of the tyres. The McLaren seemed to go better on the hards by the end than the Mercedes or RBR on the softs, relatively speaking.
MacLeod (@macleod)
10th July 2023, 8:02
it was 9 seconds …….
drmouse (@drmouse)
10th July 2023, 9:38
Technically, it went to 9.6s, which is 10s to the nearest second.
Pironi the Provocateur (@pironitheprovocateur)
9th July 2023, 19:24
Solid pace by McLaren. As their fan of 20 years, I hope they first and foremost find a good basis for the development, especially towards the next season. That’s all that matters with them, stable development has been their Achilles’ heel for the past 10 years.
reg (@reg)
9th July 2023, 20:09
I was trying to think of a team that has ever unlocked so much pace in one update. The 2009 McLaren midseason update is one that comes to mind, and that was mostly them figuring out how to improve the KERS system.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
9th July 2023, 20:25
Yes, I hope it works everywhere – not just a Silverstone Car, good for the few remaining tracks with long fast corners. Like the Williams. Alonso said something about McLaren being good at Red Bull Ring and Silverstone – maybe they should build a car that’ll crawl round showbiz tracks, fake marinas and other slow Liberty nonsense.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
9th July 2023, 20:29
I mean, they were competitive already in austria, piastri just hadn’t got the update yet, I think the difference here is ferrari was not very competitive, while it was in austria.
A M (@amam)
9th July 2023, 20:24
Max in a rocketship, probably the most dominant car in recent times, made hard work of passing Nando in a slower car. Max struggled without DRS! I’d love to see Norris in that second RB seat!
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
9th July 2023, 20:31
I’d like to see that too, I always considered norris a verstappen-like driver, at least since he’s been in f1, can’t judge by minor formulas.
A M (@amam)
9th July 2023, 20:38
All the whining on here about Lewis not getting past Lando in a slower Merc while not a peep out of the same people about how Max is an utter dominant spaceship also failed to initially get past lando. Some people need to check their biases
A M (@amam)
9th July 2023, 20:39
how Max *in an utter dominant spaceship
Edvaldo
9th July 2023, 20:41
i think for some reason Norris seems alwas happy to play second fiddle to Max. Like he lacks the killer instinct that Max have to throw their friendship under the bus if he has to in order to win.
I would like to see a more competitive guy on that car, but that won’t happen. The 2nd era of Red Bull domination is exactly like the first. One young driver coming from their ranks paired with a much older journeyman more than happy to take the scraps because that’s already much better than everything he had on the past.
Bertie
10th July 2023, 7:51
Let’s think logically for a second. We saw Max do this several times already. He knows he needs time to get the tires going, he will most assuredly overtake Lando with DRS, and he has everything to lose and nothing to gain by getting into fights at the first three laps of the race. Lando is blitzing through his tires and battery just to keep Max on the verge of the DRS range, and in the end that was impossible too. Good on Lando for his fast laps and defense and I wish the Max of a few years ago who fought for every inch was still showing up from time to time, but treating this as a gotcha is ridiculous.
drmouse (@drmouse)
10th July 2023, 10:32
Agreed. Max just got a bad start, but I doubt he pushed that hard because he knew he could breeze past with DRS and then shoot into the distance. He still had nearly a 10s advantage by the time the safety car came out, which likely had more to do with looking after the tyres than his outright pace.
I hope we are seeing that the field has started to close up on RBR, but I’m not holding my breath.
Qeki (@qeki)
9th July 2023, 20:44
5 second penalty for maylander for going off track at the final turn.
Jim from US (@jimfromus)
9th July 2023, 22:07
Did anyone else catch the post race elbow from a Red Bull person on the McLaren camera person trying to get a picture of Zac? Was whilst the drivers were still hang around their cars after the race. Just about the time they finally took their helmets off.
baasbas
10th July 2023, 7:35
I came here to see if more people felt a bit sorry for Oscar.. but I stayed for the mental gymnastics of some.. Sheesh
SteveP
10th July 2023, 8:21
In some ways, yes, but he did make one critical mistake: He went right instead of left off the grid.
If he’d gone left, then the Belgian born “wonder boy” would have been third by the first corner.
Whether that would have held much beyond the DRS activation is doubtful, but we might have heard the crowd cheers up in Warwickshire :)
Still, for a rookie, well beyond good.
I wonder if Rossi realises what he threw away yet.
baasbas
10th July 2023, 12:53
@SteveP
There is objectively a lot wrong with your comment. Let us deconstruct it to show you the error of your ways…
First of all you claim he made a critical mistake. Next you express doubt about if it would have held up anyway. Therefore he did not make a critical mistake by your own reasoning. He had a go (the full first lap!) but it didn’t materialize. He was up against more experience and after tire warm up of the RBR a quicker car. For what it is worth, I don’t think it is justified to call it a mistake. I’d commend him for trying instead. In the end he only lost his podium due SC timing.
Secondly, why do you have to use derogatory remarks about a driver whose name you seemingly don’t even want to mention. By doing that you try to change an open dialog into a hateful one. Also, it makes you look rather unpleasant and unintelligent so I’d suggest you should change your tone for the benefit of this online community. But my guess is you’ll do nothing with my suggestion, then assume I’m a fan of driver x, construct a straw man and attack it.. underlining what I just said. Or you won’t read any of this because this imho sensible comment will not pass the automatic audit anyway…
SteveP
10th July 2023, 17:34
The reason to go left was that MV would know that LN was his primary competition off the line and would go right to block, which he did.
The second reason to do that is that although the RBR is faster with DRS the successful move would have done a number of things:
1. Delayed MV catching LN
2. Provided good practice – he’s never had a situation where he could legitimately block a front-runner before
3. Provided bragging rights / ego boost.
4. You never know, he could be good enough to keep a faster car behind for many laps (refer to point 1) that McLaren was fast off the line, and it’s entirely possible that OP could have been ahead of MV by more than 1 second when DRS became available. That would have left MV with a speed deficit he couldn’t negate with DRS for however many laps it took for the relative pace capabilities to kick in. Then he blocks for a while (again, refer to point 1)
As to not passing the automatic audit – whyever not? Unless there’s a hyperlink to an f-bomb hidden in a full stop that I can’t see.
baasbas
11th July 2023, 8:02
@SteveP
Thank you for a much nicer reaction
I agree that with the power of hindsight that might have put him in front for a brief moment. I only feel it is too harsh to call it a mistake, let alone a critical one. He’s a rookie and only this one race has he had a fast car. The only thing he shouldn’t do is choke. Which he didn’t. Had a short duel with the champion in a faster car. held station behind his experienced teammate, received orders to do so, complied and ran the strategy they had perfectly. Only lost out of his podium by the SC timing. I think he did all you could ask for realistically. I guess he’ll get an 8 in the article
SteveP
11th July 2023, 19:16
No, it was a definite mistake.
All evidence (and comments from Webber) say he’s a fast learner, and I’ve no doubt he will learn. Learning from your mistakes is essential, learning from other people’s mistakes is rather useful too, and usefully his manager made quite a few. (so he says)
It was critical to his position in those first few laps. With the correct move, he’d have been in front of Max. We all know the car isn’t quite there yet, and so he’d not keep Max back for long, but it’s a more emphatic note that when faced with a competitor in a near equivalent car, Max is not the winner.