Silverstone Recap

A full recap of the British Grand Prix, covering the key moments, major talking points and everything that shaped an action-packed weekend at Silverstone. 

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Welcome to Box Box Box, as Scott would say, your friendly neighborhood F1 podcast. Mohan here again, flying solo. Unfortunately, Scott and I once again couldn't get our schedules lined up this week due to very busy work schedules. So it's just me taking you through everything that happened at the British Grand Prix. And this was one of those weekends where the result really doesn't tell you the full story. Charles Leclerc won the race, George Russell finished second, Lewis Hamilton complete the podium at his home Grand Prix. And if you only looked at those three names and the tiny gaps between them, you might assume we had this incredibly close three-way fight right to the checkered flag. We didn't. What we actually had was Leclerc controlling the race from the front, Kimi Antonelli coming at him very quickly on much fresher tyres, a really unusual mechanical failure taking Antonelli out of the fight. Max Verstappen crashing after another rear wing problem, and then a late safety car completely compressing the field and giving us some very misleading finishing gaps. We also had Hamilton showing huge speed across the weekend, but leaving Silverstone feeling like he could have achieved more. Russell somehow turning a fairly messy race into a second place, McLaren admitting that it had only had the fourth fastest car, and Racing Bulls once again putting together another excellent double points finish. So there's plenty to work through here. Let's get into it. Before we get into Leclerc's story, we really have to start with Kimi Antonelli because Saturday belonged to him certainly. Lewis had actually looked like the man to beat early in the weekend. He topped the only practice session with a 1 minute 29.26, then proceeded to take pole position for the sprint race with a 1 minute 28.376. And he only beat Antonelli by 11,000ths of a second, so there was basically nothing separating them. Hamilton held the lead at the beginning of the sprint, but Antonelli stayed right with him and eventually made the move on lap eight. From there, Kimi controlled it and ended up winning the race by just under 3 seconds. Then only a few hours later, Kimi backed it up with the Grand Prix poll. His final lap was a 1 minute 28.111. LeClerc was second with 0.175 seconds behind him. Hamilton third with a further 0.172 behind. Russell fourth, just 0.37 away from the pole position. So the leading four were covered by less than four tenths, but Antony had delivered when it mattered. The really impressive thing that this wasn't just a random qualifying lap where everything happened to come together. He had already won the sprint, it'd been quick in practice, and he genuinely looked like the strongest driver across Saturday. By the time we got to Sunday, it looked like he was setting himself up for a near-perfect weekend. And then the race began. All 22 drivers started the Grand Prix on the medium tyres, so there was no tire compound difference at the front. And then this is simply about who got the clutch release, tyre temperatures, and simple initial deployment right. Ferrari absolutely nailed it. Leclerc launched from second, immediately drew alongside Antonelli and took the lead through the opening sequence. Hamilton also got away brilliantly from third and moved ahead of the Mercedes. Within a matter of seconds, Antony had gone from pole to third and Ferrari had turned the front of the grid into one-two. I don't really buy the idea that Antony was being overly cautious because of the championship. There was nothing cautious about the way he addressed Hamilton in the sprint, and there was nothing cautious about the way he responded after losing those places in the Grand Prix. He stored close, but Hamilton under pressure, put Hamilton under pressure, and eventually passed him at Copse to move back into second. That didn't look like a driver trying to quietly bank points. That looked like a driver who knew he had pace to win and was trying to get himself back into the fight. So I think the opening lap was mainly a case of Ferrari preparing two outstanding launches and Antonelli simply not matching them in those first few meters. Once Leclerc reached turn one ahead, he had clean air, control of the race, and the chance to start building the gap that he needed, and that is exactly what he did. Leclerc's drive overall was excellent, given the conversation we had coming into this race, particularly around his potential mindset and the result that he delivered makes for an excellent drive. He got the start right, he absorbed the pressure of leading and managed the opening stint without making a meaningful error, and he gradually built a gap of around four seconds while Antonelli was dealing with Hamilton behind him. Ferrari then brought Leclerc in for a hard tire while Mercedes kept Antonelli out. That difference in strategy became the central story of the race. Mercedes knew that if Antonelli stopped at roughly the same time as Leclerc, he would probably come out behind on tyres of a similar age. He would then have to follow the Ferrari through Silverstone's Quick Corners, where dirty air makes it very difficult to stay close. So they extended the first inth. Antonelli eventually stopped at the end of lap 35, as lap 36 began and joined roughly 7.5 seconds behind LeClerc. But his hard tires were about 10 laps newer than Leclerc's. That was a big offset, especially on a warmer Sunday where the tires were degrading more than they had earlier in the weekend. Antonelli immediately showed what that difference was worth. On lap 37, he said a minute 31.777, the fastest lap of the race, and then started taking large chunks out of Leclerc's lead. Depending on exactly when you measure this, the gap was somewhere between 3.1 and 3.7 seconds when Antonelli's problem began at lap 41. Mercedes believed he was going to catch Le Kirk with only a few more laps to go. Now catching someone and passing them are two completely different things as we know. At that point, Le Klerk had tracked position, he had a competitive car, he could use his battery defensively, and he would have increased his pace once Antony was properly within range. Antonily would still have needed to follow close three through Cops, Maggie, and Bags to keep the front tires alive and then find somewhere to actually make the move. So I don't think we can say that Antony would definitely have won, but he was most certainly going to catch Le Kirk or reach him at least, with his tires that were 10 laps fresher. He would have become the favorite once he actually got there. That is what actually I think makes LeKlerc's victory both completely deserved and slightly unresolved. He had everything required of him, he did everything that was required of him. He took the lead, he managed the pace and made no mistakes. But Antonelli's failure removed the final test, and we never got to see whether Leclerc could defend the win against a Mercedes arriving very quickly behind him. So, yes, this was a very complete Leclerc drive, but it wasn't absolute proof that Ferrari had the fastest car across the full race distance. The failure itself for Antonelli's car was rather unusual. He had run over a curb he had been using through the race, and almost immediately the Mercedes stopped behaving properly. He lost a huge amount of front down force. The car wasn't traveling in a straight line, and the problem was serious enough that it initially felt like he had some kind of suspension failure. Mercedes then proceeded to bring him into the pits and changed his front wing and his tires, but that didn't fix the problem. The actual problem turned out to be around the front left wheel shield, and the extent of the damage wasn't immediately obvious. Antonelli went back out, realized the car was still wasn't right, and had to return to the pits so the team could remove or secure the more damaged material. So they ended up actually ripping it out of the car. By that 10, unfortunately, by that time, unfortunately, the victory was actually gone and had gone away from Antonelli. He had gone up to that point quite rapidly closing on Leclerc to make two unscheduled stops and fighting some many other points. He also ended up picking up a five-second penalty for exceeding track limits, which eventually left him classified 15th in the final FIA results. Could Mercedes have diagnosed this better during the first stop? Probably. If they had identified all of the damage materials straight away, they may have avoided the second visit and saved him a bit of time and potentially had him chasing for a podium. But this wasn't a normal puncture or an obvious broken front wing. It was a failure in a complicated area of the car, and the mechanics only had seconds to inspect it while they were making sure Anton Lee could be released safely back onto the track. If they had kept him sitting in the garage for a long inspection, they might have lost almost as much time anyway. So I don't think the crew created a disaster as such. The component failure created that situation. The diagnosis added to the damage, but without the wheel shield failure, Antonelli at that point was racing for a win. Instead, a weekend where he won the sprint, took pole and set the fastest slap. Ended up a weekend, a main race where he collected no points, which is a pretty brutal turnaround given the form he brought into up to that point as such. Then we talk about Lewis Hamilton. Was this a miss opportunity? I think his weekend was almost the complete opposite of what happened to Leclerc. He didn't dominate Saturday the way Antonelli did. But he was quick in every session up to that point. He topped practice, he took pole for the sprint race, finished second in the sprint, and qualified third in the Grand Prix. This then made for another brilliant start on Sunday, and he moved into second behind LeClerc very, very quickly. At that stage, Ferrari had the race exactly where they wanted it. But it turns out Hamilton had moved very slightly before the start signal, and the Stewart's as a result of it gave him a five-second penalty for what was technically a false start. He served this at his first pit stop. The official timing shows his pit lane time at 34.864 seconds, which is much longer than a normal pit stop. Particularly when there's a five-second penalty to be served, it also takes one or two extra seconds for the tire change to happen than would normally happen. So what is potentially a 2.3 to 2.5 tire change stretches out to 3.5 seconds, and that adds to the to the issue as such. So all of that ended up dropping him back into the traffic and changed the entire shape of the race. He had to fight Russell and Verstappen. But as a result of it, and as a fan, we got to see some very entertaining racing between the three of them. And he still managed to recover to stay in contention for the podium. Once Antonelli's car failed, second place came back into view for Hamilton. So third was a strong recovery given the penalty that he was issued. But I don't believe he would be leaving Silverstone completely satisfied given the form that he brought into Sunday. Well, a podium is good, and that amount of pace at the starting position is also good. Third was not the maximum available to him, and he probably would be leaving that leaving Silverstone considering that he has probably left something behind. Overall, his race balance was nowhere as good as Leclerc's. Before the Grand Prix, the two sides of the Ferrari Garage went in different directions. Hamilton reduced the amount of his front wing because he wanted to improve the rear stability. Leclerc, on the other hand, went the other way and added front load. So, does this mean that Hamilton's decision actually backfired and gave Leclerc the advantage, potentially, given the result that actually showed? And also the difference between the two cars was actually quite revealing at the end of the race. So while we can't necessarily say that setup alone was the specific cause of the result, the bigger question for Ferrari is why that choice for Hamilton penalized him so heavily. Russell second place was a combination of persistence, a good late call, and a lot of luck. He started fourth and spent much of the early race fighting Hamilton and Verstappen rather than challenging LeCloc or Antony at the front. Then Mercedes detected a slow puncture in his car. And Russell said the tired had lost about five or six PSI, roughly over roughly a lap and a half. As a result, the balance on his car became quite horrible and he had to make an unscheduled second stop. That ended up dropping him to seventh, and he appeared to finish any realistic hope of a podium. But then the race actually started coming back towards him. Antonelli suffered the wheel shield failure and disappeared from the front. Vustappen crashed out. Ferrari stopped Hamilton during the safety car. Suddenly Russell was in second position. Mercedes ended up leaving him on track because it recognized that this was the only possible route to this position. If Russell had stopped, he would simply remain behind Hamilton. If it stayed out, there was at least a chance the race could finish under the safety car. And this is a gamble that paid off for them in the end. And he himself, Russell himself, admitted that if the race had restarted, he probably would have lost at least one position to Hamilton. And Norris and several other drivers were sitting behind him on much fresher, softer soft tyres. So this wasn't necessarily a case of Russell actually producing the second fastest drive of the day. It was a driver surviving a difficult race, staying in position to benefit the conditions that were thrown at him. And the safety car compressing the field also helped him out in that sense. So before Verstappen's accident, Russell was not within half a second of LeClerc on genuine pace. But he still deserves credit for keeping the car going through the puncture and for being there when the rest actually when the opportunity to turn that race his way came up. But luck played a massive role in turning what looked like a fourth or fifth position into second place for him. There are questions around at the moment as to whether the race should have been restarted. And I think this is quite frustrating for quite a few teams. Because we had Russell on all tires and Hamilton, Norris, and others on fresh soft tires behind him. One racing lap would have been chaos. But race control followed the existing procedure and didn't restart the trace. Once the Marshals had recovered with Steppen's car, the lepped cars were allowed to overtake the safety car under the rules. Another lap normally has to be completed after that message before the safety car comes in. But by the time the unlapping process had happened, the racer already reached the final lap. Because there was some confusion with the message coming up that the safety car was coming in on that lap, which was an incorrect message as it turned out. FIA basically blamed this on a software error, but race operations did not actually bring the safety car in. Carlos Sainz penalty showed how messy the whole sequence had become. Williams actually had instructed Science to overtake the safety car when he wasn't entitled to do so under the relevant timing reference. As a result, he was given a one-lap penalty and ended up driving, dropping to 17th in the final standings. So I do understand why there was a call for a restart. It probably would have been a more brilliant finish. But the sport unfortunately cannot just change the procedure in real time because mainly to allow for that one-lap shootout as such. But there is opportunity for FI to look at changing this procedure for future races. And these are definitely options that FI should consider and discuss for future races. I personally would not support an automatic red flag every time a safety car appears near the end. This would effectively give everyone free tire changes, erase any established gaps. So this all of this, I guess, in the end led to an overall disappointing finish for the race. But we have to separate disappointing from incorrect, they're two different things basically. Then we have to talk about Red Bull's rear wing problems that they had during the race. That was a massive problem when the driver reaches a high-speed corner. The whole point of opening the wind on the straight is to reduce drag. But it must return to the correct position before the next corner so the car actually regains the required down force. This is particularly worrying for Red Bull because they and they actually said the precise underlying causes for this were quite different. And that distinction does actually matter. It may not be the same component that's repeatedly failing, which actually is a larger issue than expected. And Verstappen actually described this situation as quite dangerous, and I believe he actually was on the mark, and he was quite right. Particularly given that a driver has to commit to a corner believing that the aerodynamic configuration of the car will be exactly where it is supposed to be when he hits that corner. If that confidence suddenly gets taken away from them, it not only takes away the reliability, but it also takes away the driver's confidence to fully attack that lab. And this can actually end up costing drivers a strong result. And that was effectively what happened to Red Bull in general. And if you look at consecutive weekends, they have had two failures and sort of safety critical failures that have happened to them in consecutive weekends, which is not acceptable. Then we look at the positive side of the Red Bull story, and this for me was Isaac Hajar. He qualified fifth for the main race and was 0.635 seconds behind Paul. More importantly, actually qualified ahead of Norris Verstappen, his team at Verstappen and PS3. Eventually, in the race, Verstappen did come past him and looked like the stronger of the two Red Bulls before having to retire. So Hajar wasn't exactly matching Max over the full race distance. But he managed to stay clear of the midfield and kept himself in position and ended up click uh collecting fifth position when the opportunity actually presented itself. Overall, what this actually shows is that he actually has genuine speed, particularly late in the race. And for him, this would have translated to a very good weekend overall. Qualifying fifth, finishing fifth, and delivering points when the other Red Bull failures, the other Red Bull car actually failed. Normally it's the situation is reverse where Max is delivering points and the second car isn't. And with Hajjar being in the second card, he has consistently managed to deliver points and is pushing the constructors part of Red Bull points system, points, keeping it up in the midfield for the moment, but is able to support Max and support the team by consistently being the second car delivering points. McLaren came away with the fourth for Lando, but the team wasn't pretending that this was a brilliant performance. He qualified sixth, Piastri was eighth, more than ten tenths away. In the sprint, Norris finished third but was almost 10 seconds behind Antonelli after only 17 laps. That is a huge gap for such a short race. And in the main race, he spent far more time racing Hajjar than challenging Ferrari or Mercedes. And the main reason he stayed fourth was he basically stayed out of trouble. And basically because Antonelli and Verstappen were taken out of the conversation and ended up lead disappearing from the leading group. In an interview afterwards, Stella was actually very honest and he declared that they had the fourth fastest car on the weekend. And Norris backed him up on that. But they did operational. McLaren as a team did a good job. They managed to keep the car in the fight, they managed to avoid any major errors and collected 12 useful points. So the team would have, I think, would have felt leaving leaving Silverstone that they left with a decent result, but a very clear development problem that they have to work on. Piastri's race, on the other hand, was basically ruined before it even properly began. He was caught in the opening lap congestion and made contact with Lawson, damaging his front wing. The car then became quite difficult to control, and McLaren brought him in at the end of the first lap. The official timing table lists him as lap two because Piastri had actually crossed the timing line before entering the pits. But he didn't actually complete that second lap, he didn't fully complete that second lap. And McLaren had to change both the front wing and the tires, and that ended up dropping him back and forced him into a very long strint uh on the hard compound. He completed 34 laps on that set, which is a very long strength. Eventually ended up finishing 11th in the main race. The official gap says that he was only 4 seconds, just over 4 seconds behind Leclerc, but that is not an accurate given that the safety car ended up compressing that field. And in reality, he was a lot further away from Leclerc. And he was even before the field was compressed, he was actually outside the point. So I don't believe McLaren deserves much criticism for their response. They assessed the damage and called him in at the first available chance to fix the problem basically. Racing Bulls have shown another consistently outstanding weekend. Linblad qualified ninth, Lawson qualified 10th, and both cars reached Q3, which is a great achievement. That meant they started ahead of Audi, Alpine, Haas, Williams, Cadillac, and Aston Martin. And they ended up improving that position by finishing 6th and 7th. So this was actually the fourth consecutive Grand Prix where both cars have finished in the points. And 14 points from this reduced Alpine's advantage in the constructors' championship to just one point. This improvement has actually followed the upgrade they introduced in Canada. And Silverstone actually confirmed that this wasn't just a low speed or a circuit-specific gain for them. The car had to actually work through some of the fastest corners on the calendar, and both drivers were competitive throughout. Gabriel Bottoleto's eighth place was a very encouraging result for Audi. He qualified 11th and missed Q3 by 0.032 seconds only. And then he stayed close enough in the points, avoided trouble, and finished ahead of both Alpines. It was Audi's first points finished since Melbourne, which is quite a while. And actually some evidence that their development work is moving the car forward slowly overall. Admittedly, the result was helped by some incidents ahead, but it wasn't exactly a case of them waiting for other cars to retire. So he had bought Leto certainly had enough pace to beat Alpine and Haas and remain in points contention. The disappointment, however, for Audi was Halkenberg retiring after 36 laps with a gear-related problem. Alpine's 9th and 10th was more about damage limitation with Colopinto starting 19th and recovering to finish at 9th, gaining 10 positions. Gasly finished 10th despite losing time during his stop and struggling with the car that simply didn't have the pace of the racing bulls. When Antonelli's 5-second penalty kicked in, both Alpine drivers ended up being promoted. And three points is still useful for them. But the bigger picture, as he mentioned before, is that racing bulls outscored them by getting 14 points instead. And they would actually, I guess, would look at the 9th and 10th position finishes of both their drivers and take away that perhaps the drivers rescued a result from a weekend where their car simply wasn't quick enough. Then we look at Williams and Aston Martin, and they both seem to have very different problems. Williams did bring an important upgrade to Silverstone, but unfortunately they didn't get the improvement that they were expecting out of those upgrades. Science qualified 14th and Albon 16th. Science made a really good start and read briefly actually read 10th position. And the car sort of showed flashes of being able to fight on the lower spectrum of lower end of the points. But he was unable to maintain that pace. And then the safety car infringement eventually ended up dropping him back to 17th position. Alban's race was damaged almost immediately when he understeered into BM and broke the front wing and received a penalty. Williams as I guess ended up using the remaining running left for both those cars simply to collect data, which hopefully they can put to use good use. Aston Martin's situation, on the other hand, was far worse than Williams. Alonso's car suffered a ship down shutdown on the on the formation lap. And he eventually ended up starting from the pit lane and then finishing 18th and a lap down. Lance Stroll struggled with severe understeer, an unpredictable balance, and a lot of immediate repeated track limit penalties, and ended up finishing 19th. Which meant that both Aston Martins finished behind the Cadillacs. This kind of points the fact that they have a more fundamental car problem and they look very uncompetitive in qualifying, difficult to race, and the fact that they're even vulnerable to Cadillac is points to huge issues in that garage basically. So what does all of that then mean to the championship points? So if you look at the driver's championship after Silverstone, Kimi Antonelli still leads the drivers' championship on 179 points, but the gap has come right down. George Russell is second at 154 points, just 25 points behind him. And Lewis Hamilton is third on 147, 32 points behind. Charles Leclerc's victory moved him to 108 points in fourth ahead of Lando on 97. Oscar is 6th on 82 with Max on 76. At this stage, Antonelli is still the favorite because he has the points advantage and is showing winning pace all weekend. But another retirement or a failure would completely change that picture. So this is now a genuine three-driver fight between Antony Russell and Hamilton, rather than Antonelli simply managing a comfortable lead as it was coming into this weekend. Then in terms of the constructors' championship, Mercedes is still very firmly in control on 333 points. 78 points clear of Ferrari. And Ferrari's win and double podium certainly helped them with those points. But Mercedes coming away with second points still kept them up ahead. Antonelli scored points for winning the sprint. McLaren is third on 179 points, already 76 points behind Ferrari, with Red Bull fourth on 128. The really close fight is for fifth position. Alpine has 60 points and Racing Bulls is now only one point behind on 59. Haas 6's 7th on 21, Williams followed by Williams on 11, Audi on 6, Aston Martin on 1, and Cadillac is still waiting for its first point. So that overall was the British Grand Prix. Leclerc delivered a brilliant and very controlled win, even if Antonelli's failure denied us the final battle that we all wanted to see. Antonelli had the fastest lap and probably the strongest relate trace strategy, but somehow left without a single point. Hamilton showed enough pace to win but lost ground through the false start, the setup direction, and their late gamble with the safety car. Russell survived a puncture, stayed in the game, and somehow turned the whole thing into second place. And Red Bull leaves Silverstone with some serious rear wing reliability issues to solve. McLaren has made an admission that they probably have the fourth fastest car in the current order. And Racing Bulls is very likely to overtake Alpine in the points coming up. Next up, we head to Spa in Belgium. We will be back with our preview for that race. We will look at whether Ferrari can carry this momentum forward, whether Red Bull can fix their rear wing problems. McLaren has got some upgrades which are planned, and hopefully that will bring them closer to the front. And whether Mercedes can stay out front and keep ahead of the points of everyone else. So quick shout out to our socials on at Boxboxbox Oz AUS. We are on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok. Our website is boxboxbox.net.au. Please like, subscribe, share, send us feedback. You can also reach us on email at info at boxboxbox.net.au. Thank you for listening. Until next time, take care. And we will catch you just prior to the Belgian Grand Prix.