‘Mercedes are clearly back’ declares Russell despite ‘real blow’ of retirement

In brief

Russell thrilled he “had the car to win”

Russell led the early stages of yesterday’s race before being passed by team mate Lewis Hamilton, who went on to win. Although Russell later retired with a technical problem, he said Mercedes’ second win in as many races shows they are back on form.

“It’s incredible,” he said. “Lewis [took the] win, but we had the car, in normal dry circumstances to be one-two. We’re clearly back and I think we’ll be fighting for race wins more often now.”

However he admitted retiring from his home race after leading from pole position hurt. “Obviously, this is a real blow, retiring from any race, never mind you’re home grand prix when you have the car to win, but we’ll have another go.”

Verstappen and Albon fined for pre-race pit speeding

Max Verstappen and Alexander Albon earned multiple pit lane speeding penalties for exceeding the 80kph pit speed limit during their pre-race reconnaissance laps.

Verstappen was caught exceeding the pit speed limit three times, by 0.4kph, 0.4kph and 0.5kph, earning Red Bull a total of €300 (£253) in fines from the FIA. Albon breached the 80kph limit twice, the first time by 0.3kph and the second by just 0.2kph. Williams have therefore been fined €200 (£168) by the British Grand Prix stewards.

Another sixth show upgrade worked – Komatsu

Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu said he couldn’t ask for more after the team scored its second sixth-place finish in as many races yesterday. He said Nico Hulkenberg’s performance demonstrates the team’s new aerodynamic specification is a success.

“The updates have worked again,” said Komatsu, who had dismissed the team’s chances of repeating its Austrian Grand Prix result at Silverstone before the weekend began. “Nico felt it straight away on Friday, his qualifying on Saturday showed it and his race pace today showed it.

“Kevin in the old spec car was happy, but I think he had damage from FP2, so all in all today, these are results to be proud of.”

Famin finds positive in dire British GP for Alpine

Alpine team principal Bruno Famin admitted they “did not give our drivers a fighting chance” after an error-strewn British Grand Prix weekend for the team.

Pierre Gasly’s weekend was ruined by a power unit penalty followed by a first lap retirement with a gearbox problem. Esteban Ocon gambled on starting the race on soft tyres, which forced him to make an early pit stop, from which his race never recovered.

Famin managed to find one up-side from their dire weekend: “One positive to come from today is our work in the pit-stops where we have made significant strides forwards,” he said.

Sauber still point-less at halfway stage

Sauber is the only team still yet to score a point after 12 of this year’s 24 rounds. Team representative Alessandro Alunni Bravi said they intend to bring upgrades for the coming rounds after Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu finished out of the points again.

Zhou, like Ocon, started on softs but suffered heavy graining and was compromised from the beginning. Bottas followed a more conventional strategy but “suffered overheating on the front axle and graining, and this affected his pace heavily – on all compounds we used,” Alunni Bravi admitted.

“We clearly need to make a step forward, and this is why we need to keep working hard to address our weaknesses through a continued and committed programme of development, starting already from the next rounds.”

Maini penalised for Antonelli collision

Alpine junior driver Kush Maini was handed a 10-second post-race penalty for Sunday’s Formula 2 feature race after he was deemed responsible for his opening lap clash with Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

The two drivers collided at Village at the start of the race, spinning the Mercedes junior into retirement. While the stewards investigated the clash at the end of the race, Maini apologised to Antonelli but claimed he had experienced a braking problem with his car.

Despite this, the stewards determined that Maini was “wholly to blame” for the collision and handed him a ten second post-race time penalty, which did not change his finishing position of 19th, and his first pair of penalty points on his record.

Links

‘F1 festival’ secures Silverstone’s Grand Prix future — at a price (Financial Times)

'If you’d told me even as recently as five years ago, let alone 10 years ago, that the audience would be nearly 50:50 male-female split at the British Grand Prix or at a motor race in Great Britain, I’d have thought you were on mind-bending drugs'

Schumacher security guard ‘tried to sell photos of sick F1 star after horror ski crash and blackmail family’ (The Sun)

'Markus F was a 'trusted' security expert working for the F1 icon's family a few years ago. Now he is being accused of orchestrating the blackmail that threatened to release images of seven-time champ Schumacher in the years following his skiing accident in December 2013.'

Introducing the Gran Turismo 7 free update - July 2024 (Gran Turismo via YouTube)

A preview of the upcoming patch for Gran Turismo 7 reveals the return of a circuit introduced in Gran Turismo 5, a physics update and several new cars coming to the PlayStation title.

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Social media

Notable posts from X (formerly Twitter), TikTok and more:

|@GeorgeRussell63 is telling a group of fans in a grandstand to look under their seats as @MercedesAMGF1 have left prizes under 20 of them.

"The winner gets to be my team mate for next year!" #F1 #BritishGP #RaceFans

— RaceFans (@racefansdotnet) July 7, 2024

“Arvid Lindblad the first British winner at Silverstone in Formula 3 history”. What?? I can name at least 100 British winners at Silverstone in F3 off the top of my head

— Marcus Simmons (@MarcusSimmons54) July 7, 2024

A weekend to forget.

We turn the page and look forward to Budapest.

— Esteban Ocon (@OconEsteban) July 7, 2024

By all means show the crowd cheering when you do the replays.

But please DON’T cut to the crowd while the battle is still taking place! 😣😒

Will tv directors ever get over their compulsion to do this? 🎬

— Glenn Freeman (@glennfreeman39) July 7, 2024

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• Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory

Comment of the day

BLS isn’t surprised the FIA did not enforce its latest rules clarification when Max Verstappen overstepped the mark in Austria:

I feel like Verstappen quite often operates in the grey area of the rules. His driving is often enjoyable to watch but does also feel over the edge when really battling.

The FIA struggles to stick to its own basic rules so I’m not surprised it struggles when the infractions are borderline.
BLS (@brightlampshade)

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Ev!

On this day in motorsport

• 40 years ago today Keke Rosberg won the only F1 race held in Dallas, the track surface disintegrating in sweltering conditions