The British summer’s sporting calendar is defined by its cornerstone events: Wimbledon, Test cricket, and 100,000 petrolheads soaked in heavy rain at Silverstone. However, for the millions out of the rain, a wet British Grand Prix is always one of the great spectacles in Formula 1.
Red Bull came into the Silverstone weekend smarting from a pointless home race in the Austrian hills, with Max Verstappen retiring on the first lap after colliding with Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli, and Yuki Tsunoda predictably slow in a car lacking rear-end stability. However, a bold team choice to run a Monza-esque, low-downforce rear wing, optimising straight-line speed, while sacrificing balance in the trickier mid-lap Luffield-Brooklands and Loop-Village sections, saw Verstappen produce a rapid pole lap.
Data from the World Champion’s qualifying revealed that while he was comfortably the fastest in the high-speed, flat-out sections that make up the bulk of the Silverstone lap, he was as low as 18th fastest in downforce-reliant corners. Verstappen needed a dry Sunday in Northamptonshire, with a wet track requiring far more downforce. With his Driver’s Championship slipping away, the set-up was a gamble: a likely maximum score, or two hours wringing the neck of the car to stay competitive. In reality, the latter was inevitable when they opened the curtains on Sunday morning.
The formation lap saw George Russell and Charles Leclerc forfeit their 4th and 6th place grid positions for slick tyres, clearly bearish on the prospect of further rain which saw the rest on intermediates. Franco Colapinto failed to make the start having allegedly burned his Alpine’s clutch, while a first lap incident saw Haas’ Esteban Ocon clatter the rear left of Liam Lawson’s Racing Bulls, proving terminal for the New Zealander. Within three laps, Gabriel Bortoleto in the Sauber slid off track into the wall – rear wing damage meant that he too retired. 2025’s unusually large intake of rookies have generally flattered to deceive and this was not a vintage day for the cohort.
Green flag conditions saw leader Verstappen and his nearest challenger, championship leader Oscar Piastri, race clear of the field with a nearly four-second gap to Lando Norris in P3 on the eighth lap. Piastri dispatched the Red Bull quickly, with a tighter line out of Chapel allowing for a simple DRS pass on the Hangar Straight. The Australian was able to produce a five-second gap by lap 11 as the sister McLaren of Norris bore down on Verstappen in a torrent of rain. Eventually, Norris comfortably took second place as Verstappen drove wide on his fading inters. The top three of Piastri, Norris and Verstappen pitted the subsequent lap to replace their intermediates, but a 5.1 second stop for Norris allowed Verstappen to reverse emerge second. The two main beneficiaries of the worsening conditions were Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll and Sauber’s Nico Hülkenberg, who pitted early to undercut their way to 4th and 5th.
Many will have been disappointed to see the race director opt for a safety car in light of the downpour, with rain allowing talent to shine through. However, the conditions limited visibility, and driver safety is paramount. Lap 18’s resumption saw Russell and Hamilton trade positions for a matter of seconds, before Isack Hadjar, another rookie, wrote off his Racing Bulls by rear-ending Antonelli’s Mercedes at speed and sliding uncontrollably into the wall. Antonelli was also forced to retire.
Out came the safety car again, with a restart marked by a series of sudden decelerations from the lead car of Piastri. Aiming to inhibit tyre-warming from Verstappen behind him, he sped away to resume green-flag racing. It seemed that this chicanery could not have gone much better for the Australian. Verstappen’s whole weekend slipped away with a spin on a particularly wet patch, more evidence of the unsuitability of his downforce package. The world champion was 11th by the lap’s end to leave McLaren 1-2, with Stroll and Hülkenberg in contention for an unlikely podium.
However, all was not well for Piastri after this drama. Most instinctively knew that he had not followed the correct procedure. From that point, the question was always one of him building a gap that could absorb the resulting penalty, allowing him to keep the win from home favourite Norris. When the stewards decided on a verdict of 10 seconds, it was apparent the victory had slipped away.
With twenty laps to go, Lewis Hamilton was fifth having driven an imperfect and mostly anonymous race at the track where he holds a record of nine victories. After all the chaos though, he was in a strong position for a first Grand Prix podium for Ferrari, closing the gap to Stroll and Hülkenberg to under a second in a car with the pace to dispatch both. Stroll did not prove worrisome for Hamilton, however, the German, having previously passed the Aston Martin for third himself, remarkably began to build a gap behind him. Hamilton entered the pits for soft tyres with ten laps remaining, with echoes of the previous year’s edition in which he did the same to achieve an unexpected victory. Verstappen, having methodically made his way back through the pack, opted for the mediums.
Meanwhile, at the front, the pending 10-second sanction for Piastri took away the option of the double stack from McLaren, so after the Australian entered the pitted, he re-emerged with Norris enjoying a pitstop-sized gap. Piastri’s protestations about the circumstances of his penalty fell on deaf ears in the McLaren garage as Lando Norris took his first home win, 7 seconds ahead of his frustrated teammate.
Hülkenberg was still very fast in his Sauber, and took his first podium after 239 races at the age of 37, a remarkable and unlikely achievement after numerous near misses during his career. Hamilton stayed behind him after a messy final stint. Verstappen was 5th, who passed Stroll on the final lap, with Gasly, Alonso, Albon and Russell rounding out the points. Russell and Leclerc’s strategic fortunes did not improve after their opening failed gamble with the Monegasque finishing a dreadful P14. The only car he finished ahead of on the road was Tsunoda, himself a midseason replacement for Liam Lawson, who could suffer the ignominy of being fired before the end of the year following consistently desperate performances.
Piastri wisely held his tongue in the post-race interview with Jenson Button. It was apparent that he felt the race-defining penalty he received was unjust and that his team, if they agreed, should have ensured he won, having been the lead car virtually all weekend. He did not congratulate Norris in his usual mild manner. It could be considered another sign of McLaren beginning to suffer similar intra-team tension to Mercedes in the Hamilton-Rosberg period. With the pressure increasing on Piastri following successive defeats to his teammate, how he manages his depleted championship lead as the season continues will be fascinating.
Image Credits: “2024-08-25 Motorsport, Formel 1, Großer Preis der Niederlande 2024 STP 3968 by Stepro (Lando Norris)” by Steffen Prößdorf is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.