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Tyres NorthamptonYet the feel-good factor at Silverstone remained high as Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton flanked the Dutchman on the podium. Of course, Hamilton is a regular fixture on his home podium, but a delighted Norris electrified the crowd, especially after briefly leading in the early laps.
McLaren had qualified in P2 and P3, with Norris leading rookie teammate Oscar Piastri after Saturday heroics from the classic British team, with only Verstappen's Red Bull as the faster car in single-lap pace. The pair soon showed that McLaren's leap forward wasn't just in Qualifying, with the young duo holding firm for much of the race.
Norris made a far better start than polesitter Verstappen to snatch the lead from the championship leader by Turn 1, leaving the Red Bull racer to defend from the sister McLaren of Piastri over the opening lap. Elsewhere, Hamilton lost out by running wide at Farm, dropping from P7 to P9, while teammate George Russell benefitted from Pirelli's soft tyre compound to leapfrog Carlos Sainz and become the meat in a Ferrari sandwich as others raced on mediums.
Norris retained his lead until Verstappen benefitted from DRS to help him glide past into first place on the run into Brooklands. The British driver didn't put up much of a fight, knowing that he was in a breakaway top three, and didn't want to lose time to the chasing pack.
Hamilton spent his opening laps undoing the damage of his wide moment on Lap 1, getting past Pierre Gasly and then Fernando Alonso in relatively quick succession, and started to hunt down Sainz to join the Ferrari vs Mercedes scrap. With not much between the four racers, Ferrari became the first of the frontrunners to play the strategy game, pitting Charles Leclerc from P4 to try and fend off any undercut from either Mercedes driver on Lap 19.
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However, the move didn't see Russell or Hamilton pit any time soon, even with Russell running on the soft Pirelli compound. Rather than engage in pit wall warfare, Mercedes Russell to their own plan, and the Brit kept enough pace in his tyres to keep Sainz behind until the Spaniard pitted on Lap 27.
When Russell finally did stop two laps after Sainz, he emerged a little behind Leclerc and ahead of Sainz, but fielding the yellow-walled medium tyres while the Ferraris now had Pirelli's hard compound. However, any pit-stop strategy plans would soon unravel as Kevin Magnussen suffered a second mechanical failure in two days and retired on the Wellington Straight.
The resulting Virtual Safety Car morphed into a full Safety Car, and those that hadn't already swapped tyres soon dived into the pit lane to make their mandatory stop. Hamilton was the primary benefactor, jumping ahead of the Leclerc-Russell-Sainz trio and even Piastri, who had stopped under the VSC rather than the Safety Car. Somewhat inexplicably considering the long-lasting Pirelli tyre life Russell had demonstrated, Ferrari pitted Leclerc again, demoting the Monegasque down to P10.
With the order now Verstappen-Norris-Hamilton as the top three for a final 15-lap dash to the line when the Safety Car ended, Hamilton heaped pressure onto Norris for P2. Norris' job was that much harder, too, thanks to McLaren's choice of equipping hard-compound tyres to their two cars. With Piastri fending off Russell's advances behind them, Norris just kept ahead of Hamilton thanks to the slight speed advantage of his car on the run to Copse in a double McLaren vs Mercedes melee.
As soon as Norris and Piastri had their tyres up to temperature, they managed to retain their positions, securing P2 and P4 for McLaren, with Mercedes forced to settle for P3 and P5. The Ferraris, meanwhile, fell to P9 and P10 by the chequered flag, with Sainz enduring one woeful lap after losing out to Sergio Perez on yet another recovery drive.
Sainz dropped from P6 to P10, with even Alex Albon's Williams easing by on a frustrating day at the site of the Spaniard's first and only F1 victory. After the positive steps in Austria, with Sainz and Leclerc claiming a trophy each in Sprint and the Grand Prix, the Italians will wonder what went wrong in Britain.
Out front, Verstappen took the win, his first British GP P1 finish, but the fans were still jubilant with having two Brits on the podium. The "Laaaandooooo" chanting almost felt like a passing-the-torch moment from Hamilton to the latest home hero and shows that Britain's appetite for F1 in any Hamilton-less era remains high. The 20 drivers now have one week off before another doubleheader at Hungary and Belgium, starting on the weekend of July 23rd.