Salracing

View Original

In Pictures: Great Britain 2021

Lewis Hamilton wins dramatic British Grand Prix.

This year’s race at Silverstone featured a different format, just two practices, one on Friday, another on Saturday, a Qualifying on Friday afternoon, albeit not for Sunday’s Grand Prix, but for a Sprint race on Saturday afternoon. This Sprint race decided the starting Grid for Sunday’s Grand Prix. Confusing? perhaps, but it is the new system being pushed by the FIA and F1 rights holder. We might only see this new format at selected Grand Prix in the future with the next two events in 2021 yet to be announced.

As for the racing, FP1 was packed with cars on track trying to acquire as much information as possible before qualifying later that same day.

This particular qualifying saw Lewis Hamilton setting the fastest time and getting prime position for Saturday’s Sprint race. He was closely followed by Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, teammate Valtteri Bottas and Charles Leclerc from Ferrari.

Saturday started with the second practice of the weekend and as had happened with FP1, most teams got as much time as possible to gather information and to prepare them not only for the Sprint Qualifying race later on but for the Grand Prix on Sunday.

The Sprint Qualifying was packed with action and did saw many drivers exchange places from Qualifying the day before with Max Verstappen winning the Sprint Qualifying, adding three points to the driver’s championship and taking first spot in Sunday’s Starting Grid. Behind Verstappen came Hamilton, Bottas and Leclerc. It also saw George Russell getting a three-place grid penalty for crashing into Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari and moving from an outstanding ninth place to twelfth. Nevertheless, it was Red Bull's Sergio Perez who had the worst Sprint Qualifying, losing places off the start and then spinning by himself without contact to having to start the Grand Prix from the pitlane.

On Sunday, everything was set for a fantastic race. There were 140,000 fans on the stands, a beautiful blue sky and a very warm weather. The race started and as expected, Lewis Hamilton was attacking Verstappen everywhere, until they approached Copse, Hamilton tried to make a move through the inside and although Verstappen did leave space, Hamilton's front left wheel ended up touching Verstappen's rear right and sending him at full speed to the barriers. The Safety car came out, and we all were relieved to see Verstappen come out of the destroyed RB16B, albeit very shaken. He was examined on track by the race doctors and taken to the Silverstone Circuit Medical Center for initial checks as he had sustained a 51G force crash. He was then flown by helicopter to a local hospital for scans and additional tests. Several hours later he was released, bruised but otherwise in good health.

As for the race, it was red flagged as the Red Bull had to be removed and the barrier repaired. Before the red flag, a charging Leclerc had passed Hamilton and was leading the Grand Prix. During the race, as the rules allowed, Hamilton's Mercedes was repaired as it had a cracked wheel resulting from the crash earlier on and a few loosened bits in the front wing.

The race was restarted and Hamilton pursuing Leclerc, who started having issues with software settings and losing time; Hamilton was fast approaching Leclerc, setting fastest lap after fastest lap. Then the Stewarts communicated the teams that Hamilton was being penalized with a 10-seconds time penalty, which he served during his pitstop. Hamilton came out and started frantically pursuing Leclerc, and two laps from the end he passed the Ferrari and took a dramatic win, his eight at Silverstone and his 99th victory in Formula One.

QUOTES FROM THE PODIUM