Luke’s Weekend Review – Silverstone GP 2023

Throughout the race there was multiple radio messages with talks of rain as on lap 10 we hear Verstappen’s engineer report incoming rain and on lap 15 Max did in fact report drizzle coming down. Max wasn’t the only one reporting rain as George Russell also comes on the radio saying it was raining, but after the Spanish GP everyone was a bit sceptical of Russell unsure if it was actually sweat again. The rain however never really picked up enough for anyone to think about pitting for inters.

From the top 10 we see Leclerc making the 1^st move in the pits as on lap 19 the Ferrari driver pits for fresh hards to attempt the undercut on Russell who he was fighting earlier in the race. Carlos Sainz had some drama when he opted to pit on lap 27 as we see the Spaniard lock his brakes trying to slow down for the pit limiter, Sainz also opts for the hards to try and go to the end of the race. A couple laps later we see Russell dip into the pits to get onto the mediums after an impressive 29 lap stint on the softs. Unfortunately for Russell staying out longer didn’t get him in front of Leclerc but it only took him 2 laps and Russell managed to make it past Leclerc in the end.

Drama hits on lap 33 as we see the Haas of Kevin Magnussen stop on the side of the track and engine caught fire having to retire from the race which was the 2^nd time this weekend the Ferrari Power Unit gave Magnussen trouble. This incident brought out the VSC which later turned into the full Safety Car. With the Safety car out anyone else who hadn’t pitted took the opportunity for a cheap pitstop and went int to change their tyres along with some drivers who had already pitted, pit again to take off the hards and go for a quicker compound. Despite most drivers who opted for softs the Mclaren team opted for hards for Norris which had everyone questioning the strategy, but the Mclaren seemed to perform way better on the hards unlike most other teams.

On the restart, Verstappen seems to have caught Norris napping a bit and managed it very well as he pulled a gap to the Brit straight away and this put Norris under a bit of pressure as Hamilton was right on his tail on the restart on the quicker softs. The pair battled for a few laps, but Norris drove beautifully and managed to keep Hamilton at bay to secure his first podium this season. Lando’s impressive drive also bagged him the driver of the day which in my opinion was very well deserved as Norris managed his drive brilliantly from start to finish.

On lap 44 we see Sainz have a bit of a nightmare, due to a bad strategy call from Ferrari (yes, I know, Ferrari Strategy strikes again), Sainz was being attacked by Sergio Perez and as soon as Perez gets through we see the Williams of Alex Albon swoop through as he sees the opportunity after Sainz tried to defend on Perez. Later that lap his teammate Leclerc also made it through past Sainz making it the 3^rd place he lost in 1 lap. By the end, both Ferraris dropped 5 places from where they originally started which is fairly poor given that they were showing some impressive pace over the weekend.

The race finished with Max Verstappen on the top step followed by Lando Norris, Lewis Hamilton, Oscar Piastri, George Russell, Sergio Perez, Fernando Alonso, Alex Albon, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz formed the top 10. 2 British drivers finished on the podium in Silverstone for the first time since 1999 since David Coulthard was 1^st and Eddie Irvine was 2^nd. And talking about stats, Lando finishing on the podium for Mclaren in Silverstone was the first time Mclaren bagged a podium since Hamilton finished 2^nd back in 2010. This race however showed us that despite most teams bringing their main upgrade package to this race for this season, no one can get close to the Red Bull of Max Verstappen.

Who do you think was the biggest winners and the biggest losers of the Silverstone GP? We now head into a week break before we return to the track at the Hungarian GP.