Max Verstappen shook off a poor start to march to a sixth consecutive victory of the season at the Aramco British Grand Prix. Lando Norris held on to take McLaren’s first podium finish of the year, with Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton third. 

Sunday was Verstappen’s eighth win of the season and Red Bull’s 11th straight tying them with McLaren for the F1 record for most consecutive wins.

He also joins Alberto Ascari, Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel and Nico Rosberg to have won six straight races. Verstappen has also now scored a top two finish in 11 straight races now including all 10 this season. In fact, he has 20 top two finishes in his last 22 tries.

Verstappen Rues Difficult Start

When the lights went out, polesitter Verstappen got an uncharacterizable poor start and front-row rival Norris seized the lead into the first corner. The second McLaren of Oscar Piastri slotted into third place ahead of the Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, while Mercedes’ George Russell held fifth ahead of the second Ferrari of Carlos Sainz. However, Hamilton, starting seventh, went wide at Turn 3 and dropped to ninth place. 

At the front Norris was able to keep Verstappen at bay across the opening laps, but when DRS was enabled the Dutchman closed in and on lap 5 he used the speed boost on the Wellington Straight to power past the McLaren as they went into Brooklands and take the lead. 

“Yeah, we had a terrible start, so we need to look into why that was,” Verstappen said. So, of course, very happy that we won again, I mean, 11 wins in a row for the team, I think that’s pretty incredible, but it wasn’t straightforward today.”

Verstappen said that he was doing a bit of drifting on Thursday with marketing and it felt like he was also doing it on this start on Sunday, which wasn’t very good.

“It was just very bad. We’ll look into that, because I think the last few starts were actually a lot better, and then today wasn’t that great,” he continued. “But at least it made it a bit more exciting. I had to push for it. Lando didn’t really put up a fight, he was very nice to me but then he came back in the DRS, so he had a lot of pace today.”

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McLaren’s Upgrade Pays Off, Norris Questions Tire Call, Peers Praise Them Still

McLaren brought an upgrade last weekend for Lando Norris. It paid dividends for the Brit to score a fourth-place finish in Austria. This week, further upgrades were enabled, including Oscar Piastri joining Norris with new parts.

They turned heads.

McLaren qualified 2-3. However, some wondered how long they could stay there. Saturday was a perfect storm between overcast skies and cooler temperatures. Those conditions suit the McLaren cars.

The McLaren duo never flinched with both cars finishing in the top four including a runner-up by Norris.

“Pretty insane,” Norris boasted. “I just want to say a big thanks first of all to the whole team: they’ve done an amazing job and none of this would be possible without the hard work that they’ve been putting in, so pretty amazing, pretty insane.

“The whole in-lap I was just trying to wave to everyone. So, a big thanks to all the British fans out here supporting all of us. Also for McLaren. Honestly, we should have have P2 and P3. Oscar did an amazing job all weekend, and he should have been P3 today without the Safety Car, so a shame, he deserved it. The fans are amazing – so a big thanks to all of them.”

Norris’ strength drew praise by friend, Verstappen.

“I think, especially Lando, he was very… well both McLarens… were super-quick,” said Verstappen. “So, I took a few laps to pass them and that at one point I could ease-out a gap and I think everything looked quite alright again. But then again, after the Safety Car, on the softest compound around here, it was a little bit more tricky for us to keep them alive, basically, so the gap basically stayed a bit around 3-3.5 seconds.”

Verstappen’s praise was dually noted by both McLaren drivers as well as third place finisher Lewis Hamilton.

” I just want to say a big congratulations to Lando and to McLaren, where it was my family, where I first started, so to see them back up there, looking so strong,” said the Mercedes driver. “I mean, that thing was rapid through the high-speed corners. Wow. I couldn’t keep up, but we had a good little battle on the restart. The start wasn’t so great for me but the long run on the Medium was really great, so I think this is a good positive for us as a team, to know that we’re not that far away, that we’ve got to just keep on pushing, and we can catch those guys up front.”

Even with a runner-up finish, Norris was questioning the tire strategy by his team still.

On lap 33, however, the Virtual Safety Car was deployed when Haas’ Kevin Magnussen ground to a halt at the start of the Wellington Straight, with flames licking at the back of his car. And with his Haas car requiring recovery the full Safety Car was released. 

That was the cue for those who hadn’t made a tyre switch to pit and after the stops had shaken out, Verstappen, on Soft tyres, led hard-tyre runner Norris, with Hamilton now third on Softs ahead of Hard-shod Piastri and Medium-tyre runner Russell. Fernando Alonso held sixth ahead of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and Pérez found himself in eighth place. 

The Safety Car left the track at the end of lap 38 and Verstappen controlled the restart well to pull away from the chasing pack. And as Norris became embroiled in a furious battle with Hamilton for P2, Verstappen was able to build a solid gap. With 10 laps left the Dutchman was more than three seconds clear. 

“They put me on Hard tires, I don’t know why, they’re still beginners in some things,” he said. “It was an amazing fight with Lewis, to hold him off, I made a few too many mistakes maybe. I did what I could, I brought the fight to Max for as long as possible. It’s a long, lonely race when you’re just in the middle but it’s amazing.”

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Great Rebound For Hamilton, Mercedes

Mercedes felt like they were going to be much better this weekend. They ended up just fine with a pair of top five finishes including a spot on the podium. However, after a ho-hum weekend prior, it was far from where they thought they’d end up.

The result was what they expected, but the climb to get there wasn’t.

After a strong run in Spain to score double podiums, they felt like they’d come back down to earth in some capacity in Montreal. They didn’t. They were just as fast. So, that’s why they were more surprised to be so far off last week in Austria. They seemed to have lost pace when they didn’t do anything differently.

However, some of their rivals did also bring some upgrades for last weekend which as a result, could have been the prime reason them jumping back ahead of Mercedes after the duo finished P7 and P8 at the Red Bull Ring.

With another upgrade for Silverstone, Mercedes felt like they’d be back up towards the top again. Unfortunately, for most of the weekend, they largely struggled for pace.

They started 6th (George Russell) and 7th (Lewis Hamilton) respectively. That’s why to get both in the top five felt like a win.

“I’m really happy: to start seventh and come third is a mega, mega job, so big Thank You to my team: great pitstops, great work all weekend, and I love this crowd,” said Hamilton.

 “I really didn’t expect to be on the podium today. But when we go through all the different strategy options, this is the one you hope for, which is the Safety Car. I basically put on the Medium tyre in the hope and plan to just stay out on them until the very end, until the Safety Car potentially would come, and fortunately it did. So our a long run pace is really good and really grateful for the team for continuing to push. We do have a lot of work to do on our car to put ourselves in proper competitive form to fight the Red Bulls and now McLarens.”

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As Expected, Ferrari Falls, Aston Martin Reeling

Ferrari qualified both cars in the top five, but barely got both cars in points. They knew that tires would be a problem and of course, they were again. They went from P4-P5 at the start to P9-P10 at the finish.

It further drops them back a year after they dominated in a pole/race winning weekend in England.

Charles LeClerc has one top five finish in the last six races. To show how far he’s fallen, LeClerc had finished 3rd, 3rd, 4th, 2nd and 4th respectively in his last five Silverstone tries prior to this weekend. He was also runner-up last Sunday too and fourth the race prior in Montreal. So, to come down to ninth was telling.

Carlos Sainz Jr. once again finished 5th or worse (10th on Sunday) just as he’s done for the ninth straight race.

It puts Ferrari set up in fourth as they’re still 98 points clear of McLaren but 24 points behind Aston Martin who themselves also had another dismal weekend.

Aston Martin was second in the constructors for much of the first part of the season, but they’ve fallen back towards reality where Mercedes is still rising. With Mercedes scoring a pair of top five finishes including another podium compared to Aston Martin finishing P7-P14, the gap between them went from Mercedes +3 to Mercedes +22.

They feel like they just need a total rest after having had a strong start to the 2023 season with 5 podium finishes in the first 6 races run. However, over the last four, they’ve had just one.

What’s happened?

Fernando Alonso was 6th in Spain, second in Montreal but fifth again in Austria and now 7th in England. Lance Stroll was 7th, 9th, 9th and 14th in the same races.

What I feel like they’re struggling with are natural road courses. On street circuits, Alonso was 3rd, 3rd, 4th, 3rd, 2nd. That made up 5 of the 1st 6 races.

The last four races, there’s been just one race that ran like a street race (Montreal) for which Alonso was P2. On more natural free flowing tracks, he’s finished 6th, 5th, 7th.

The next four races (Hungary, Belgium, Netherland, Italy) are on these types of tracks. So, with a deficit on these places, they better spend the summer break figuring out how to improve there.

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Perez Gets To 6th, Points Race Basically Over

Max Verstappen has won every race since May 7 (6 straight). Sergio Perez has looked pedestrian in that span finishing 2nd, 16th, 4th, 6th, 3rd and 6th respectively. The points gap between them now is up to 99. With 12 races left, Verstappen doesn’t have to win another race and he can still take home the title.

That’s because Perez has been terrible on Saturday’s.

For the fifth consecutive race, Sergio Perez failed to make Q3. For the fifth straight race, his teammate was on the pole. You’ve got to think the top brass at Red Bull is growing tired of Perez’ antics by missing out on the final round…again.

2 podiums in 6 races.

Prior to that, he had 4 top 2 finishes in 5 races and held Verstappen in check for this year’s championship. Now, he’s in a fight for second in leading Fernando Alonso by just 19 points.

Top Quote

For the 6th straight race, we saw a different car finish runner-up. In Miami, it was Red Bull going 1-2 with Verstappen-Perez. For Monaco it was Aston Martin and Fernando Alonso. Spain was Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton’s turn. Canado was back to Aston Martin and Alonso. Austria was Ferrari and Charles LeClerc. Sunday in England was Lando Norris and McLaren.

“It’s very confusing to me because every single race weekend, it’s someone else,” Verstappen said. “I think is because it’s so close behind that if you get your car in a little bit of a better window, it works on one particular track.

“So for me, I don’t know what’s going to happen in Hungary to be honest, who is going to be quick or the second quickest. The stable factor so far is that every single weekend, it seems like we are on top, which of course is the most important from our side. But again, Hungary completely different track, we will put some upgrades on the car there and hopefully they will work well.”

Top Stat

2 of the 3 podium spots went to Brits.

2023 FIA Formula 1 British Grand Prix – Race 
1 Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing 52 1:25’16.938 
2 Lando Norris McLaren 52 1:25’20.736 3.798
3 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 52 1:25’23.721 6.783
4 Oscar Piastri McLaren 52 1:25’24.714 7.776
5 George Russell Mercedes 52 1:25’28.144 11.206
6 Sergio Pérez Red Bull Racing 52 1:25’29.820 12.882
7 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin 52 1:25’34.131 17.193
8 Alexander Albon Williams 52 1:25’34.816 17.878
9 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 52 1:25’35.627 18.689
10 Carlos Sainz Jr. Ferrari 52 1:25’36.386 19.448
11 Logan Sargeant Williams 52 1:25’40.570 23.632
12 Valtteri Bottas Alfa Romeo 52 1:25’42.768 25.830
13 Nico Hülkenberg Haas 52 1:25’43.601 26.663
14 Lance Stroll Aston Martin 52 1:25’44.421 27.483
15 Zhou Guanyu Alfa Romeo 52 1:25’46.758 29.820
16 Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri 52 1:25’48.163 31.225
17 Nyck de Vries AlphaTauri 52 1:25’50.066 33.128
18 Pierre Gasly Alpine 46 1:17’35.589 Accident damage
     Kevin Magnussen Haas 31 48’55.905 Power Unit
     Esteban Ocon Alpine 9 14’16.351 Retirement