Hamilton takes dream home win

Hamilton takes dream home win: Analysis of a classic British Grand Prix, brought to you by Bahrain International Circuit

The British Grand Prix has not been short of home driver victories in its history, not least in recent years when Lewis Hamilton was in his dominant era with Mercedes up until 2021. The difference since then has been the dominance of Max Verstappen and so home driver hopes have been thin on the ground since then. Over the last few races, however, as the competition has grown, as have the hopes of the British national anthem being belted out on the podium after the race. The Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell had without doubt been on the up and more recent upgrades have shown to be very competitive. McLaren and Lando Norris were expected to have even higher hopes based on recent form, so there was a new level of optimism coming into this weekend.

Whilst hopes may have been high, it is probably fair to say that even the most optimistic fans would not have predicted a British top three in qualifying. After all, such a feat had not been achieved since 1968 and it had never been achieved in the history of the British Grand Prix. The Brits on the grid decided, however, to leave history to one side with Russell claiming a remarkable pole, followed by Hamilton and Lando Norris. It was quite the start to the weekend for the home crowd. With 480,000 fans over the course of the weekend, the race continues to attract vast audiences for this landmark in the calendar. Their spirits were not dampened at any stage by some classic British summer weather that dominated proceedings over the weekend. On occasions, it felt like all four seasons were taking place over the course of a few hours and the threat of rain was never far away.

As the grid lined up on Sunday afternoon, behind the three Brits, Vesrtappen was in fourth and at times looking somewhat off the pace, with Piastri in the other McLaren in fifth, followed by Hulkenburg in the Haas and Sainz in the Ferrari. The two Mercedes got off to as good start, with Russell leading from lights out. Verstappen managed to take Norris early on and this top four settled in the early part of the race, albeit with the threat of rain expected around 20 minutes after the start.

That rain arrived on lap 15, with initially light drizzle making drivers somewhat cautious round a slippery track. The McLaren’s made the best of the conditions and it wasn’t long before Norris took the lead, with Piastri also overtaking both Mercedes and Verstappen for second place.

By lap 27, the rain had become more substantial and Verstappen became the first of the front-runners to pit for wet weather tyres. Much of the rest of the field stop on the next lap, although Piastri was delayed a further lap because he was so close on track to his teammate, a double stop would have cost a lot of time.  In any case, that extra lap for the Australian proved costly as he could only emerge sixth. Once the rain tyre stops had been completed, Norris remained upfront, followed by Hamilton, then Verstappen who had nudged ahead of Russell who had delays on his stop, followed by Carlos Sainz and Oscar Piastri.

Whilst this halfway point looked incredibly promising for the British contingent, George Russell received a call from the pit lane to retire his car. His abrupt departure came as a big shock, although later it was described by his engineers as a water system issue – somewhat ironic given the amount of rain that had appeared over the weekend.

For the next stint of the race, whilst the rain became light, it wasn’t until around lap 38, that the rain appeared to ease and the time came to move back to dry tyres. First came Hamilton and Verstappen, with Norris a lap later. That one lap delay cost the McLaren driver significantly, as he came out behind Hamilton. For this final part of the race, Verstappen was on the hard, tyre with Hamilton and Norris on the soft. Piastri opted for the medium in fourth.