Championship leader and home favourite Lewis Hamilton achieved his sixth victory at the British Grand Prix. The Mercedes driver benefitted from a safety car to jump his teammate Valtteri Bottas to score a popular Silverstone win.
Hamilton overhauled poleman Bottas by running a longer first stint that allowed him to only stop once, and it proved crucial when a safety car emerged after Bottas pit.
That gave Hamilton track advantage and he won comfortably after Bottas made a late second pitstop to use his mandatory second compound, having used mediums in his first two stints.
Charles Leclerc finished third after a dramatic battle for the final podium spot, in which Leclerc had an epic fight with Verstappen – who was later fired into the gravel by Vettel.
Pierre Gasly scored his best result for Red Bull with fourth, while Verstappen managed to get his car out of the gravel and finish fifth, with Vettel down in P16 after needing a new front wing and being hit with a ten-second time penalty.
Bottas led the first part of the race but kicked off the pitstops amongst the leaders while Hamilton extended his stint to lap 20. That was vital for Hamilton, who was already considering switching to the hards and executing a one-stop strategy.
He and Vettel, who struggled in the opening stint down in sixth, but also extended it, then had their persistence rewarded when the safety car emerged.
Antonio Giovinazzi locked the rear wheels on his Alfa Romeo entering the penultimate corner and slid sideways into the gravel.
With the race neutralised Hamilton and Vettel dived into the pitlane, rejoining in first and third respectively and with no further pitstops to make.
In the fight for the win, Bottas was hamstrung by the decision not to pit under the safety car and switch to hard tyres, which locked him into a two-stop strategy.
He was unable to attack Hamilton at the restart and ran a couple of seconds adrift, before eventually pitting seven laps from the end having opened up a big enough gap to the best of the rest.
That meant he still finished second, and looked to claim the fastest lap bonus point as consolation for his lost victory – before Hamilton pumped in an even faster time on the final lap on old hards.
Hamilton’s last-gasp fastest lap meant he extended his points lead to 39.
Behind the Silver Arrows drivers, Leclerc finished third after a thrilling British Grand Prix.
Leclerc held the place early on but had to withstand enormous pressure from Verstappen, who then managed to just jump him in the pitlane as they stopped at the same time.
However, Leclerc quickly retook the place when Verstappen ran wide at The Loop immediately after exiting the pits, before falling back behind after Ferrari opted not to stop him again as soon as the safety car was deployed.
Red Bull reacted quicker and stopped Verstappen swiftly, and he rejoined fifth – behind Vettel and the sister Red Bull of Pierre Gasly, who pit earlier and stuck to a one-stop.
Ferrari’s call to stop Leclerc a lap later dropped him to sixth, and when the race resumed he attacked Verstappen immediately.
Their wheel-to-wheel fight recommenced and peaked when Leclerc attacked on the outside into the final complex of corners just before mid-distance.
They bumped wheels slightly when Leclerc had the inside for the right-hand penultimate turn, and Verstappen took to the run-off on the outside, keeping the position as he rejoined through the final corner.
Leclerc’s challenge faded after that unpenalised incident, while Verstappen passed Gasly for fourth and then caught and attacked Vettel for third.
Max nailed the Ferrari on the outside at Stowe on lap 37, but ran slightly wide and Sebastian tucked into his slipstream on the short run down to Vale – but positioned his Ferrari on the inside, with nowhere to go, and tried to switch back to the outside too late.
Vettel locked and crashed into the back of Verstappen’s car, pitching it airborne over a kerb and into the gravel as the Ferrari ended up facing the wrong way with its rear wheels in the gravel.
They both rejoined, but Verstappen was limited to fifth – fortunately not losing further positions – as Vettel dropped to the back.
Vettel’s elimination from the front allowed Carlos Sainz to take sixth for McLaren, fighting off Daniel Ricciardo’s Renault in a fierce best-of-the-rest fight.
Kimi Raikkonen executed a one-stop strategy to finish eighth, while Daniil Kvyat’s well-timed safety car pitstop allowed him to charge to ninth. Nico Hulkenberg completed the point scorers in tenth position.
The two Haas drivers joined Giovinazzi in retirement – Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen colliding on the first lap and both retiring as a result shortly afterwards.
So congratulations to Lewis Hamilton in achieving a record of six victories to become the most successful British driver winning at Silverstone. Sure, the safety car helped but this is racing. Taking the opportunities in the right moment.
As for the racing, that was pure quality at Silverstone. The battle between Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen was a pure highlight.
British Grand Prix, race results:
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 52 1h21m08.452s
2 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 52 24.928s
3 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 52 30.117s
4 Pierre Gasly Red Bull-Honda 52 34.692s
5 Max Verstappen Red Bull-Honda 52 39.458s
6 Carlos Sainz Jr. McLaren-Renault 52 53.639s
7 Daniel Ricciardo Renault 52 54.401s
8 Kimi Raikkonen Alfa Romeo-Ferrari 52 1m05.540s
9 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso-Honda 52 1m06.720s
10 Nico Hulkenberg Renault 52 1m12.733s
11 Lando Norris McLaren-Renault 52 1m14.281s
12 Alexander Albon Toro Rosso-Honda 52 1m15.617s
13 Lance Stroll Racing Point-Mercedes 52 1m21.086s
14 George Russell Williams-Mercedes 51 1 Lap
15 Robert Kubica Williams-Mercedes 51 1 Lap
16 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 51 1 Lap
17 Sergio Perez Racing Point-Mercedes 51 1 Lap
– Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo-Ferrari 18 Spun off
– Romain Grosjean Haas-Ferrari 9 Accident damage
– Kevin Magnussen Haas-Ferrari 6 Accident damage
Drivers’ standings:
1 Lewis Hamilton 223
2 Valtteri Bottas 184
3 Max Verstappen 136
4 Sebastian Vettel 123
5 Charles Leclerc 120
6 Pierre Gasly 55
7 Carlos Sainz Jr. 38
8 Kimi Raikkonen 25
9 Lando Norris 22
10 Daniel Ricciardo 22
11 Nico Hulkenberg 17
12 Kevin Magnussen 14
13 Sergio Perez 13
14 Daniil Kvyat 12
15 Alexander Albon 7
16 Lance Stroll 6
17 Romain Grosjean 2
18 Antonio Giovinazzi 1
19 George Russell 0
20 Robert Kubica 0
Constructors’ standings:
1 Mercedes 407
2 Ferrari 243
3 Red Bull-Honda 191
4 McLaren-Renault 60
5 Renault 39
6 Alfa Romeo-Ferrari 26
7 Racing Point-Mercedes 19
8 Toro Rosso-Honda 19
9 Haas-Ferrari 16
10 Williams-Mercedes 0
British Grand Prix race review as reported by Formula1.com.
Once again a huge crowd turned out for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone – and once again they were treated to a thriller. Pole-sitter Valtteri Bottas looked to have done everything right as he led from the front and fought off team mate Lewis Hamilton, but a Safety Car intervention gifted his Mercedes team mate a free pit stop, allowing him to leapfrog the Finn and ultimately a record sixth home win for the Briton. But the lead battle was just part of the story…
Behind the Silver Arrows there was wheel-to-wheel action galore, as the Ferraris and Red Bulls engaged in a tense battle for third. It was eventually won by Charles Leclerc, but only after Max Verstappen had been dramatically punted out of the position by the other Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel…
Bottas led away from pole position and held off a spirited attack from Hamilton in the early laps, before the Briton wriggled through at Luffield – to the delight of a packed house at Silverstone. But Bottas wasn’t having any of it, tucking into the slipstream before catapulting his Mercedes up the inside at Copse to retake the lead in sensational fashion.
From there, he controlled the race from the front and was the first to pit, as he was the lead car and therefore was on the optimum strategy, re-joining third, behind Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel. But then Antonio Giovinazzi beached his Alfa Romeo in the gravel, bringing out the Safety Car.
Championship leader Hamilton dived into the pits, as did Vettel, and rejoined in the lead before taking the chequered flag for his seventh victory in 10 races in 2019, with Bottas finishing second. Hamilton hammered home his pace with the fastest lap on the final lap of the Grand Prix, on 30-lap old tyres, usurping Bottas, who pitted late on for fresh rubber.
Red Bull had to settle for fourth and fifth with Pierre Gasly and a recovering Verstappen, while Carlos Sainz, who like Hamilton had a free stop when he pitted under the Safety Car, took sixth, ahead of Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo and Kimi Raikkonen. Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat was ninth with Nico Hulkenberg snatching the final point from Alexander Albon on the final lap.
Vettel meanwhile trailed home in 16th…
Hamilton was visibly disappointed when he missed out on pole position to Bottas by just 0.006s and it looked like it was going to be the Finn’s weekend when he held off a spirited Hamilton on track, hitting back when the Brit passed him at Luffield to retake the lead moments later at Copse.
Further back, Vettel slipped past a slow-starting Gasly to take fifth, while Carlos Sainz jumped both Alfa Romeos to run P11. The other McLaren of Lando Norris was making gains too with a slick pass on Daniel Ricciardo’s Renault. He had a go at Gasly, the two making contact, but he couldn’t make it stick.
Elsewhere, there was more misery for Haas, with Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen banging wheels coming on to the entry to the Wellington Straight, with both cars pitting at the end of the lap and then subsequently retiring.
The clouds may have swept in for race day, but it was sizzling on track up front – with Verstappen renewing his rivalry with Leclerc with an attack on the Ferrari driver. The Monegasque refused to budge and gave the Dutchman the squeeze to retain position – allowing Vettel and Gasly to close. The latter pounced on Vettel to snatch fifth before becoming the first of the frontrunners to take fresh rubber.
Next time around, Leclerc and Verstappen pitted and stunning work from Red Bull got him out alongside the Ferrari in the pit lane. As he was on the inside, he had the track position on exit to get ahead, but Leclerc would not be denied, getting back ahead through the Village complex.
Three laps later, it was Bottas’ turn. Slick work from Mercedes got him out in third, behind Hamilton and Vettel. But then the race is turned on its head when Antonio Giovinazzi beached his Alfa Romeo in the gravel at Club, leading race control to deploy the Safety Car.
Hamilton seized his chance and snatched a free pit stop – as did Vettel and Sainz – and they were all rewarded handsomely by gaining track position. Verstappen dived in too for a second stop, rolling the dice with a set of hards, dropping him to sixth.
On the restart, Verstappen attacked Leclerc, the two fighting brilliantly through Vale and onto the straight before Verstappen hung his Red Bull out on the outside before diving back across to the take fifth. That became fourth when Gasly moved aside, and the Austrian GP winner set off in pursuit of Vettel.
It wasn’t long before he was on the Ferrari’s gearbox, the Red Bull driver getting a run on him into Stowe and getting ahead, only for Vettel to misjudge his braking and clatter into the back of him, sending both of them off.
Both rejoined, but Vettel was forced back to the pits – and was subsequently handed a 10-second time penalty. Verstappen continued with damage to take fifth – although he later expressed his disbelief at how it was possible.
While that was going on, Leclerc had been heaping the pressure on Gasly and was then rewarded after he pulling off a delicious move around the outside of Village. That was for fifth, but became third following Verstappen and Vettel’s off.
Leclerc took his fourth successive podium with third, while Gasly secured his best finish for Red Bull in fourth. Sainz takes sixth for the third time this season, but it’s not so good for McLaren team mate Lando Norris who lost out because of the Safety Car and ended up 11th.
Ricciardo scored points for the first time since Canada with seventh, while Raikkonen made it three points finishes on the bounce with eighth. Kvyat – another big winner under the Safety Car – was ninth while Hulkenberg, who earlier made contact with Sergio Perez (which broke the latter’s front wing), took advantage of a struggling Alexander Albon on worn tyres to snatch the final point.
From start to finish, a brilliant race.
Max Verstappen commented that racer Sebastian Vettel has apologised for a “disappointing” crash. Motorsport.com has the news story.
Red Bull Formula 1 driver Max Verstappen says Ferrari rival Sebastian Vettel apologised to him immediately after the British Grand Prix for their collision during the race.
Verstappen had just cleared Vettel in the battle for third place on lap 37 when the German attempted to retake the position down the inside of Vale – only to lock up and hit the defending Verstappen.
The contact resigned the Red Bull driver to an eventual fifth-place finish, with Vettel dropping out of the points due to damage and subsequently picking up a 10-place grid penalty for his role in the incident.
Cameras showed Vettel approach Verstappen right after the race had concluded, with the pair exchanging a handshake.
“I guess he misjudged his braking in there – but I already spoke to him, he apologised to me immediately out of the car, and that’s it,” Verstappen said. “It’s disappointing but you can’t change it now.”
Vettel had questioned Verstappen’s defence on the radio in the immediate aftermath of the collision, but took the blame for the clash when talking to his Ferrari team after finishing the race.
Explaining his view of the crash to the media, Vettel said: “I thought the inside will open up, [but] it didn’t open up. It looked for a second as though he was pulling to the middle of the track, but then he stayed left and then I was too close and couldn’t avoid the crash.”
When asked for his view of the penalty he’d received, Vettel said: “It’s fine, it was my mistake.”
The collision spun Verstappen’s Red Bull around, which led to the RB15 being launched airborne off the sausage kerb on the inside of the corner.
Verstappen, who ended up finishing nine seconds off the podium, said it was “a bit of a surprise” that he hadn’t retired on the spot.
“The power steering more or less failed so it was quite a hard workout for me out there, the seat popped up so it was moving around a lot,” he explained.
“The diffuser was broken, the floor was broken, underneath I could see parts falling off. Was not great.
“The car was not what it should’ve been, [so I’m] still happy to be fifth.”
Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas rues “mistake” of ruling out one-stop strategy which cost him the chance in scoring a top result at Silverstone. Motorsport.com has the details.
Valtteri Bottas admitted he made a mistake in thinking that a one-stop strategy was not possible in the British Grand Prix, after losing out to Mercedes Formula 1 teammate Lewis Hamilton.
The Finn led the opening stages of the race and appeared to have everything under control as he made the first of two scheduled stops.
But Hamilton turned things around by extending his opening stint to try to run to the end with a single change to hards – and then was further helped by a safety car call giving him an effective free pitstop.
On a day when the Mercedes drivers were given more freedom than usual to go their own way on strategy, Bottas admitted that his side of the garage had got it wrong with their predictions.
“Definitely there was an idea to split the cars, one of us going for hard for the second stint, but the idea was for that car to do medium-hard-medium,” he said.
“[We thought] one stop honestly was out of the question today and that was a mistake from our side. It was by far the quickest strategy today, the medium-hard, but we thought it would be much slower.”
Mercedes decided in their race-morning strategy meeting that the option of splitting strategies should be available to their drivers – otherwise the fight would be decided at the first corner.
Team boss Toto Wolff said: “In our strategy meeting in the morning, actually the drivers brought up whether there was an offset strategy possible for the guy running second, because if you put them on the same tyre, that’s probably how the race is going to end.
“Picking up on the suggestion, we decided that the second-place driver would run an offset strategy with the hard tyre, in the middle. We weren’t quite sure whether one-stop would make it, probably rather thinking it would be a two[-stop], also because of a lack of data on the hard – and this is exactly how it panned out.
“Obviously both of them drove a brilliant race, both of them would have deserved to win the race, and in that instance the safety car swung in favour of one driver.”
Hamilton said that the strategy freedom left him convinced before the start of the race to try something different.
“It’s difficult for the team, because individually we want to win and the team has to take the most balanced approach for both of us,” he said.
“If you do a good enough job in qualifying the first car generally gets priority, it’s quite hard to [reverse] that unless you do it on track or undercut, those kind of things.
“We had discussed the fastest way to the end was medium-medium-hard, but there were alternative strategies. That was something I’d looked into and I’d already decided at the beginning of the race that I was going to extend the first stint to 20 or 21 [laps]. Did I know we’d stay on a one-stop? No. But we have to be strategists a little bit ourselves.”
British Grand Prix winner Lewis Hamilton “went against the team” by not making late stop. Motorsport.com has the full story.
Lewis Hamilton says he went against his Mercedes Formula 1 team by not making a late second pitstop on his way to British Grand Prix victory.
Hamilton scored a record-breaking sixth victory at Silverstone after a safety car period allowed him to jump ahead of polesitting teammate Valtteri Bottas.
The two Mercedes drivers opted for diverging strategies, with Bottas committing to stopping twice and Hamilton attempting a long first stint on medium tyres, which ultimately did away with the need to stop again.
Helped by the safety car, Hamilton had pulled 21 seconds clear of Bottas in the closing stages, and therefore could have pitted for a second time and still emerge with his lead intact, and virtually guarantee himself the fastest lap bonus point on soft tyres.
In the end though, the reigning champion decided not to stop, not wanting to risk the pitstop going awry. He still beat Bottas to the fastest lap on his worn hard tyres.
Asked if he had considered stopping again at the end when he had the margin over Bottas to do so, Hamilton replied: “Why take the risk?
“I had a pitstop window, but there’s the entry of the pitlane, there’s the stop, there’s extra pressure on the mechanics to do the pitstop – not that I doubt them at all, but you just give a chance to it [to go wrong].
“I had saved enough in the tyres, I felt good with the hard tyre, I could keep going. I did have some blistering, so I was kind of conflicted, [thinking] should I stop?
“It would have brought us closer, but there were seven laps left, it’s very hard to catch a 21-second delta at the pace I could still do, so I decided [not to stop].
“It’s rare to go against the team, but I decided today that was the best thing for me.”
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff had said part of the rationale for wanting to bring Hamilton in towards the end was to protect him from a possible second safety car restart.
Asked about the situation by Motorsport.com, Wolff said: “We had some intense debate among us whether to pit for – we had a free pitstop for another soft at the end – or not.
“From a racing driver’s standpoint it’s always a risk to pit, but from a pure data standpoint you have a free stop, you’d rather go for the soft, because if a safety car happens you’re really exposed at the end with the hard tyre.
“So it was 50/50 and then we asked him what he thought about it, and he made the right call I believe, with a little worry in the end about having a blister.
“But I think overall the tyre held on, seven laps to the end, and it was right to keep him out.”