What a difference a week can make.
Max Verstappen produced a fantastic drive to take an unexpected win at Silverstone’s 70th Anniversary Grand Prix.
The Mercedes cars had been dominating the weekend in what has become their customary manner this year, with a comfortable margin of almost a second to the rest of the field during qualifying. But that dominant qualifying session would actually prove to be quite costly.
Red Bull put Verstappen out on the hard tyres in Q2 and he succeeded in progressing with that tyre, meaning that he would start the race on it, whilst Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton had to start on the softer medium tyres. Those tyres rapidly started to degrade and Verstappen was all over the back of the Mercedes by the time they pitted on laps 13 and 14 respectively.
Around 10 laps later, Verstappen was still circulating happily on the hard tyres he had started the race on – in addition to having completed a qualifying lap – and the Silver Arrows were already struggling with blistering on their new, hard tyres. Verstappen wrote off any chance of challenging for the win when speaking to the media on Saturday, but Red Bull suddenly realised they had a genuine chance here.
A slow pit stop saw the Dutchman rejoin narrowly behind Bottas, but he was able to make short work of passing him on the fresher tyres and opened out a small gap. The pair would pit together on lap 32, both fitting the hard tyres and Bottas’s chances of a win looked all but over. Mercedes chose to gamble with their other car, initally considering trying to run Hamilton to the end, but – likely cautious considering last weekend’s tyre blowouts – eventually settled on a long middle stint and a charge to the flag with 11 laps on a fresh set of the hard tyres.
The world champion did a good job of preserving the tyres and, once he was on the new set, hunted down and passed Charles Leclerc and Bottas fairly easily. Verstappen was long gone, however, and took the chequered flag for his ninth F1 victory, along with second in the drivers’ standings.
Bottas was visibly frustrated at having ended up behind his teammate, after an excellent pole position the day beforehand, and accused his team of “sleeping”. He will have to come back stronger once again in Spain next weekend, where further high temperatures and punishing corners could see Red Bull in contention once again.
Behind the top three, Leclerc came home an impressive fourth and Alexander Albon produced a much-needed performance, full of excellent overtaking manoeuvres, to finish fifth. The Racing Points followed them in sixth and seventh – Nico Hülkenberg impressing again during his substitute appearances – with Esteban Ocon, Lando Norris and Daniil Kvyat filling the remaining points-paying positions.
Politics on the Track
Leclerc continues to drag this year’s Ferrari into positions it probably has no right to be. In Austria and Hungary, he took unlikely, opportunistic podiums and, today, made a risky one-stop strategy work – against the recommendations of his strategy team – to move up from eighth on the grid to fourth at the finish line.
This is reinforcing the impression he gave last year that he is a true star of the future, but he will need Ferrari to make some significant improvements to the way in which they operate if he is to challenge for titles any time soon.
On the other side of the garage, a messy divorce is playing out in front of the eyes of the world.
Sebastian Vettel picked up where he left off last weekend, struggling to extract any performance from the underpowered SF1000. The low-downforce setup which the team decided to pursue at Silverstone doesn’t appear to suit his driving style and he qualified a lowly 12th. On Sunday, he spun at the first corner.
There was still a strong chance of a recovery drive, though, with the possibility of counter-strategies such as the one-stop used successfully by Leclerc. But Ferrari were stubborn and forced him to pit – seemingly to move him out the way of his teammate – which left him in traffic. The rarely outspoken German came over the radio to say, “I’ll hang in there, but you know that you’ve messed up”.
Matters were made worse when he was bizarrely pitted after just 10 laps on the hard, in order to take a set of used mediums for the remaining 19 laps. Conspiracy theories of Ferrari purposely hindering Vettel are abound and this was not helped by Team Principal Mattia Binotto pinning the blame squarely on his driver. Vettel himself looks done with the team and pointedly remained completely silent over the radio after the race had ended.
And Politics off the Track
Friday morning saw the result of Renault’s protest against the Racing Point brake ducts. The ‘Pink Mercedes’ were docked 15 points and fined 400,000 euros for what the stewards described as “using tracing paper to copy a shape/drawing” when it came to their design process.
The matter is complicated by the fact that Racing Point were legally supplied with Mercedes’ 2019 brake ducts last year, before they became a listed part, and can’t really be expected to forget the designs that they have seen. What apparently swung the stewards’ decision was the fact that Racing Point did not use the designs of the rear brake ducts last year as they did not fit with their former high-rake philosophy, but they are now using them after changing to the Mercedes philosophy for this year’s car.
Either way, nobody is happy with the result.
Ferrari, McLaren, Renault, Williams and Racing Point themselves have all lodged the intention to appeal and Lawrence Stroll issued a strong statement, defending the team and accusing others of “poor sportsmanship”.
Binotto said, “at school there are those who pass and those who copy their homework”, and that they would be seeking clarity over the situation. Frankly, that is pretty rich coming from a team who came to a highly controversial ‘undisclosed agreement’ with the FIA regarding their almost certainly illegal use of engines last season. If Racing Point were ‘copying homework’, then Ferrari just plain cheated on the test.
The 70th Anniversary Grand Prix in 60 Seconds
Answering the Burning Questions
With softer tyres and higher temperatures, will there be further tyre dramas? Not as much visible drama as last week, but it certainly changed the complexion of the race.
Can Alexander Albon have a clean weekend? Qualifying still wasn’t the best but overall, yes.
Will Sebastian Vettel find some pace after struggling in the midfield last weekend? Not really.
Can Valtteri Bottas put a dent in what is now an ominous gap to his teammate in the standings? Nope.
Surely The Hulk can catch a break and at least get to race this time?! He can! Still no podium, though, obviously.
