In the end the checkered flag of the Silverstone GP rewards Hamilton who returns to victory after almost three years. The triumph at home was accompanied by a bedlam of applause and profuse tears from the seven-time world champion, Bono and all his loved ones. Verstappen and Norris complete the podium, together again, but without disagreements. Hulkenberg confirms the good feelings of the weekend for Haas, giving the team sixth position. The result of the Silverstone GP race leaves Ferrari little to rejoice about with Sainz's fifth position and Leclerc outside the top-10. Aston Martin scores important points with Stroll and Alonso in seventh and eighth place respectively. Albon and Tsunoda close the top ten rankings.
Quiet start at Silverstone, but Max outsmarts Norris
For the first time at Silverstone three English drivers start from the top three positions. When the traffic lights went out Russell and Hamilton respected their starting positions, confirming the one-two of qualifying. Norris, who started from the second row together with dear enemy Verstappen, managed to protect himself from the Dutchman's attack until the third corner only to then make a mistake and be overtaken. The hunt for the "silver arrows", however, is struggling to get started. Piastri follows his teammate in fifth position. The man of the moment, Niko Hulkenberg, with his upgraded Haas lost positions at the start, slipping to ninth position. Sainz and Stroll precede him, while Leclerc moves up to eighth from eleventh position. At the start Albon tails off and is warned by Sargeant that he has lost parts of the car in the contact. Perez needs points from the pitlane to confirm his position in Red Bull. Gasly forced to retire after the formation lap.
The rain finally arrives to liven up the Silverstone race
The race crystallized with the two Mercedes that seem to have returned to the metronomes of the past, comes to life on the fourteenth lap with Leclerc overtaking Stroll and climbing to eighth position. The heavy rain was slow in arriving, but the weather conditions changed rapidly as did the positions of the first four riders on the track. On lap fifteen Norris takes third position from Verstappen, who unlike Austria offers no resistance. Two laps later Piastri also forcefully wins the duel with the three-time world champion. The rain arrives and Hamilton takes advantage of it to take the lead of the race, but he remains in command for a short time. The two Mercedes drivers go long in photocopy and Norris takes advantage of this, first crossing paths with Russell and then with a car with more aerodynamic load overtaking Hamilton to take the lead of the home race. Meanwhile, Verstappen, who laps slower than everyone else, collapses: not even the switch to intermediates on lap twenty-seven manages to improve his times, pinning him in third position.
At Ferrari they choose to bring forward Leclerc's pitstop on the fifteenth lap to get ahead of the others, but the strategy doesn't work. The Monegasque dropped to fifteenth position and was forced to stop a second time due to worsening weather conditions. On lap twenty-seven Verstappen and Sainz return to the pits to fit intermediate tires. Norris and the two Silver Arrows follow them with a double pitstop. Russell gets the worst of it and falls behind SuperMax who is fourth. Piastri, however, sacrificed to give precedence to his teammate, returns sixth after the pitstop. Meanwhile, bad news arrives from the Mercedes garage for the home poleman: Russell is forced to withdraw from the Silverstone GP, leaving the race on the thirty-fourth lap.
McLaren also made a mistake in the race at the Silverstone GP at the end, giving the victory to Hamilton
The pitstops reignite the race, repaying the cost of the ticket to the English public. On lap thirty-eight Hamilton and Verstappen return to the pits and use soft tires and hard tires respectively. McLaren once again reacts too late: it only calls Norris into the pits on the fortieth lap to fit soft tires and loses first position. Sir Hamilton is now the leader of the race. who wins at home for the ninth time. Verstappen, regenerated by the pitstop and by a decidedly dry track, regains the strength he apparently lost at the start of the race and with five laps to go he overtakes Lando without too much difficulty, climbing onto the second step of the podium. Perez's dark period continues: he is sixteenth and lapped by his teammate. Ferrari does not go beyond fifth place and Sainz's fastest lap, while Leclerc is fourteenth outside the points zone. The Cavallino-powered Haas, on the other hand, experiences a magical moment with Hulkenberg's sixth position. Williams also finishes on points with Albon. Zhou closes the rankings last.
