Hello, MiniFans! As it’s quite usual on British soil, water has decided to make a visit in the shape of summer showers: short but intense bursts of rain that, while not enough to grant a full on wet race from start to finish, will still mess up the well thought out and planned strategies for dry weather. A quite fitting context to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the first ever F1 race, right here in Silverstone, all the way back in 1950.
Seeing the sun shining down on the grid as mechanics left the grid to leave the drivers alone didn’t aling with the intermediate tyres fitted on the cars due to an earlier shower, but despite the current weather, a forecast for heavy rain around lap 15 was worrying, as the likely drying track as the race went on would be something difficult to deal with for both drivers and teams. Seeing this and the dry spots, Russell and Leclerc led the charge into the pits with a bunch of cars, while Piastri confirmed there were spots with too much water for slicks.
The start, with less cars than usual, was very careful from those still on the grid, as the spray not seen during the warm up lap was now lifting. However, taking care doesn’t mean that incidents when won’t happen when wter is involved, so an attempt at overtaking ended up in a collision between Ocon and Lawson. The Frenchman couldn’t go further inside, as Tsunoda was to his left, and the Racing Bull collided with him. The resulting virtual safety car prompted Antonelli to also pit for slicks, visiting the outside of the track as he started to warm up his hard set of tyres.
Most of the track was now dry enough to use slicks, but there were still a handful of corners that required special care. Bortoleto was a victim of such a place, spinning out and crashing into the barriers before being forced to retire the car and prompting yet another VSC during which drivers started to be warned that rain was predicted to come in merely a handful of laps, a message underlined by the dark clouds that now covered the circuit. In the restart, Piastri started tailing Verstappen, studying the Red Bull and patiently bidding his time. DRS became his best friend, overtaking without too much of a problem and not getting into any trouble. The battle repeated way at the back, among Russell and Leclerc with their slicks as rain started to be reported. Russell easily got past him and his own teammate, who was having trouble and would soon be overtaken by Leclerc as well bofre going straight into the pits for a set of inters.
The most surprising sight was probably Stroll, who was the only on slicks who had chosen a soft set, as he climbed up the timing tower, overtaking people on intermediates before pitting just in time for the forecasted rain. Verstappen was still managing to defend against Norris, at least until his worn inters had him go outside of the track due to the lack of water evacuation. The three at the front pitted together, with McLaren managing a good stop for Piastri but not for Norris, whose problems with the front left dropped behind Verstappen once again.
With the rain now falling down intensly, Stroll’s strategy had turned out to be the best, as after everyone had pitted (save for Ocon, who was still on his original set), he had climbed up to fourth. Meanwhile, Hulkenberg had also hit the jackpot, as his one stop to freshen his inters had been at the perfect moment. The amount of water coming down and accumulating on the surface lifted so much spray that a safety car was deployed following the known history of race direction when it comes to rain. Visibility seemed to be the only problem, as there wasn’t any clear struggles to race or stay on track from any particular driver, save for Leclerc, who had claimed it had been due to water enterning his visor and temporarily blinding him.
The restart lacked even more visibility than before, as they were all tailing each other and trying to gain positions. Not even a lap into racing, it had to be neutralized yet again, as Hadjar had hit a very lucky Antonelli, who didn’t seem to have too many problems following the collision despite missing a good chuck of his diffuser, and ended up into the barriers. The safety car was required once again, with the added commentary from Piastri, who was still leading, pointing at a very large puddle in turn 2 that seemed to be a struggle for Maylander.
The restart was preceded by a big braking by Piastri that made Verstappen get past him before he could brake as well and also compressing the queue of cars before he hit the throttle. Caught a bit by surprise after complaining over the radio about Piastri’s move, Verstappen spun as he tried to follow the McLaren, luckily not hitting anyone and leaving him in ninth place, forcing a comeback from the Red Bull driver. This also meant that Stroll was now temporarily closing the podium positions plus a ten-second penalty for the Australian for infringing safety car regulations.
Verstappen’s comeback wasn’t looking like it was going to happen, as he wasn’t even able to keep up with Sainz while managing to barely stay in the points, as he was stuck in 10th. Back at the front, eyes were on Stroll and Hulkenberg, who were about to engage in a fight, but it wasn’t only them contending for the last step of the podium, but also was slowly but surely closing the gap to them as the track was starting to dry. As soon as DRS was enabled, Hulkenberg easy got past Stroll, starting to make a run for it and hoping Stroll could mamage to keep Hamilton behind it, but the dream didn’t last too long. Another driver taking advantage of the DRS was Verstappen, who finally managed to get past Sainz and start pursuing Alonso. However, he didn’t need to do much, as he soon pitted to take a gamble on a set of mediums, having a few problems with the still damp surface. Russell, who chose hards, was struggling more, even spinning in the fastest past of the track.
The dry tyres started to work better as time went on, with Alonso mananging to cut down his lap time by four whole seconds in one lap. Hamilton was the first from the top to take the risk with softs. Similar to his former teammate, he struggled to keep it in the racing line while the rubber was still cold. Hulkenberg followed through in the next lap, even widening his gap to Hamilton, but with the disadvantage of mediums against the Ferrari softs that were allowing him to set fastest laps after one more mistake among the sea of them present on track.
McLaren’s last stop saw their drivers exchanging positions as Piastri complied with the penalty he had been awarded earlier, stealing the fastest lap away from Hamilton as well as taking a leasurely stroll outside of the track limits, not wanting to be left out of the fun everyone else was having. Eventually, he came to terms with the fact that his mistake during the safety car had cost him the win, and lifted his foot from the throttle. Huklenberg was staying strong in third, not crumbling under the pressure of Hamilton lapping the track one second faster than he was. The German driver managed to keep the gap from shrinking too much, giving every last bit of energy towards finally earning a very sought after podium, his very first after over 230 races, to celebrate it alongside both McLaren drivers.
Classic tracks have earned the title for a reason. Longevity on the calendar is simply one of them, but the stories they build is certainly the bigger one. A few years ago we witnessed Sainz’s first ever win and Zhou’s miracle in walking out unscathed after his car rolled and landed upside down, whereas and last year Hamilton ended a three-year victory drought, and those are just a few of the many things Silverstone has allowed for. This year it was Nico Hulkenberg’s turn, a driver with one of those records no one wants, to break the curse than haunted him and score his very first podium with a team that was not in anyone’s bets to score a podium at the start of the season.
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