McLaren Shines as Max Verstappen Dominates at British Grand Prix

Race winner Max Verstappen of the Netherlands and Oracle Red Bull Racing celebrates in parc ferme during the F1 Grand Prix of Great Britain at Silverstone Circuit on July 09, 2023, in Northampton, England. (Photo by Mark Thompson | Getty Images)

SILVERSTONE, United Kingdom – Formula 1 made their yearly return to the home of the series, Silverstone Circuit, for the 10th race of the season. Just like the previous races, the majority of the field looks to capitalize on upgrades as they chase down Red Bull and championship leader Max Verstappen while he hopes to increase his championship lead.

In a small change from Saturday’s qualifying session, Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas’ time was DQ’d after it was found that he ran out of gas on his final qualifying run in the first qualifying round, which explains why his car came to a stop while on track. This forced Bottas to start on the tail-end of the field for Sunday’s Grand Prix.

Tire strategies saw the majority of the field taking the Medium compound tires while Mercedes started George Russell on used Soft compound tires, along with the AlphaTauri pair of Yuki Tsunoda and Nyck de Vries and the Alpine of Esteban Ocon, and Haas put Nico Hulkenberg on the Hard compound of tires along with the Alfa Romeo of Bottas. A variety of strategy options were in play with the tire choices at hand.

With the grid cleared and the cars sent around for the formation lap, the anticipation was high for the British Grand Prix. Standouts of the weekend, McLaren, had both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in a position to make a statement and turn the season around from the dreadful start they had been in.

The lights went out, and pole-sitter Verstappen was not able to get out of his grid slot fast enough, and the McLaren of Norris jumped him to the roar of the home-track crowd. Verstappen fell in line with the other McLaren of Piastri behind him as the rest of the pack spread out to make up as many positions at the start of the race.

The Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz sandwiched the fast-starting Mercedes of Russell while his teammate Lewis Hamilton had fallen back to ninth after being pushed wide in the early corners behind the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso and the Alpine of Pierre Gasly.

Verstappen stayed behind the McLaren of Norris, who had passed him at the start, and did his best to stay within Drag Reduction System range, enabling him to take advantage of the pace that the Red Bull had with the DRS open. Within 5 laps of the start of the race, Verstappen was able to get by Norris to retake the lead. Further down the order, Hamilton was making quick work of regaining the track position he lost, getting by both Gasly and Alonso to get back behind the Ferrari of Sainz.

Max Verstappen of the Netherlands driving the (1) Oracle Red Bull Racing RB19 on track during the F1 Grand Prix of Great Britain at Silverstone Circuit on July 09, 2023 in Northampton, England. (Photo by Dan Mullan | Getty Images)

McLaren worked a bit of team magic, telling the rookie Piastri to stick behind his teammate, keeping themselves within sight of the leader, and to keep pulling ahead of Leclerc behind them. This strategy seemed to work. As Verstappen was starting to extend his lead, the McLaren duo was making a gap to stay ahead of the fourth-place car.

Further down the order, the other Red Bull of Sergio Perez was making his way up the field after another disappointing qualifying effort on Saturday. In making his way past the Haas of Hulkenberg, slight contact was made, causing a front-end plate of the Haas to fly off. With this, Haas called in Hulkenberg for the first pit stop of the day.

Lap 10 saw the first retirement of the day as Alpine called Ocon into the pits due to a hydraulic failure. It was an end to a weekend that could have seen Alpine make up some more ground in the points.

Once again, the eyes were on the sky with showers popping up in the towns surrounding the track. Mixed reports by teams as to if it would rain on the circuit. Mercedes pit wall radioed to Russell that “it’s going to miss us on the radar.” Russell did once again state that “there are drops on the visor.” But it is possible, like the last time he made a similar comment, it was once again sweat he was seeing.

As the race approached and passed the halfway mark, the true first round of stops hadn’t occurred. Russell, running on a used set of Soft tires, was still making competitive times and sticking with Leclerc with little to no fall-off.

Ferrari was the first of the front runners to call for a pit stop, with them calling in Leclerc for a pit stop and swapping him from the Medium compound to the Hard compound. However, even though it was a quick stop, it took longer than expected for Leclerc to start making up time with the new set of tires. Then they called in Sainz to also swap out the Medium tires for the Hard tires.

Mercedes called Russell in to respond to the Ferrari stop to overcut Leclerc. However, a slower stop had him come out behind Leclerc. All hope was not lost, as he soon made it past Leclerc going into Luffield a few laps later. Perez, who had fought his way into the points-paying positions, was called into the pits shortly after Russell for his stop of the day.

The first of the sharp end of the field to blink was McLaren calling in Piastri to swap from the Medium tires to Hard tires while Alpine called in Pierre Gasly with Aston Martin calling in Lance Stroll. At the head of the field, it was a game to see who would blink first between Red Bull with Verstappen and McLaren with Norris. Staying out with them was Hamilton with the Aston Martin of Alonso and the Williams of Alex Albon.

But their decision was soon made incredibly easy. The Haas of Kevin Magnussen soon came to a stop, causing the deployment of the Virtual Safety Car and, shortly, the deployment of the actual Safety Car. Under those conditions, the remaining drivers who had yet to pit went down pit road to make their stops. Surprising everyone, McLaren decided to go with the Hard tire compound for Norris while everyone else who pitted during that moment went with the Soft tires.

Once everything cycled out during the long SC period, Verstappen continued to lead Norris, while Hamilton jumped Piastri for third. Russell held onto fifth ahead of Alonso, Sainz, Perez, Albon, and Leclerc, rounding out the Top 10.

The SC finally left the track, and Verstappen was back in control of the field. Thus began a thrilling battle between the two Brits of Norris and Hamilton. Hamilton is hoping to use the theoretically better Soft tires to get by Norris in the Hard tires. Using amazing defense, Norris was able to starve off the charging Hamilton with and without DRS to hold onto second place, while Verstappen continued to work on opening back up the gap.

Down the order, Perez got around Sainz, which sent the Spaniard falling down the order, getting passed by Albon and Leclerc, putting him in danger from Stroll and Gasly behind him. The pair had a feisty battle between them that soon saw Stroll receive a 5-second time penalty due to going off-track to gain an advantage. While returning to the track with the close-by Alpine of Gasly, they made contact, resulting in suspension damage for the Frenchman. This damage led to the retirement of the Alpine, meaning a double DNF for both cars. A dreadful result as they lose ground on the strong McLarens.

Perez, continuing his fight through the field, made his way past Alonso while Albon took his Williams, celebrating their 800th Grand Prix, took on the Ferrari of Leclerc on merit and made his way further up the order.

The laps ticked down, and the dust started to settle right before the checkered flag flew. Verstappen came home with his eighth victory of the season. This was a record-tying victory, with McLaren having 11 team victories in a row, dating back to Abu Dhabi last season. The two Brits of Norris and Hamilton crossed the line second and third, with Piastri coming home fourth. Russell, with high praise of the quick McLarens, took fifth, with Perez crossing the line sixth. Alonso, Albon, and the Ferrari duo of Leclerc and Sainz finished out the points-paying positions.

Just outside of the Top 10, the other Williams of Logan Sargeant had a strong day, just barely missing out on the points, while the Alfa Romeo of Bottas made a recovery drive from starting at the tail-end of the field and finished 12th.

There is now a short break before F1 heads to Hungary at the Hungaroring for the Hungarian Grand Prix. It will be seen if McLaren continues their form of impressive finishes and if the field can continue to close up the gap to the Red Bull team.