Hamilton Verstappen Silverstone
Hamilton Verstappen Silverstone
Before we get started, what a race am I right? Probably the best we’ve had all year. But onto more serious business, Mercedes fans had high expectations for their drivers coming into Silverstone and the 2 would not disappoint. From George showing class when he went to check on Zhou after the massive crash at the start of the race, to Lewis showing what the Silver Arrows could be once they get their issues fixed.
But yet again it wasn’t a weekend without controversy for the Silver Arrows as Hamilton’s words after the race irked many F1 fans, especially those who avidly support Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. So what did Lewis end up saying in his postrace interview? And do Lewis and Toto believe that the team is ready to fight for the championship again? Well, let’s talk about it. But before that, consider subscribing to the channel as we upload 4 times a week to keep you updated on the latest news in the F1 space. Now let’s get to it…
To say this race was eventful is such an understatement, especially how the race initially started. As we all know by now the first start of the race was absolute carnage with Williams driver Alex Albon, Mercedes driver George Russell and AlfaRomeo driver Zhou Guanyu all colliding with Zhou being thrown all the way past the barriers.
But thankfully Zhou walked away from the incident unscathed with George showing his class checking on Zhou which cost him the chance to continue racing. This would George’s first DnF as a Mercedes driver and halting his streak of finishing within the top 5 of every race this season.
But as that was going on in the back, Lewis would be able to sneak his way into P3 after starting the race in 5th. But all of that would be thrown away as the FIA would have them restart at their original positions which meant going back to P5 for Lewis. At the 2nd start of the race, Hamilton would drop back to 6th behind McLaren’s Lando Norris and both Ferrari and Red Bull drivers.
Inevitably Lewis would outpace Norris and then trail Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc who had front wing damage from battling with the Red Bull cars. Bad luck would hit both Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen as both would get damage to their cars that would greatly affect their car’s performance gifting Hamilton the opportunity to slide up to P3.
And when this happened, it was hammer time for Lewis who would steadily gain on the 2 Ferrari cars in front of him with every lap that passed. Eventually, Hamilton would outlast the 2 Ferrari drivers and take the lead with an opportunity to overcut. But when Lewis pitted, the team would not be able to execute perfectly with the overcut attempt which ended in Lewis coming out of the pit lane behind both Ferrari drivers.
Then at lap 39, Alpine’s Esteban Ocon’s car would shut down forcing the FIA to call on a safety car while they remove Ocon’s car from the track. During the safety car period, Hamilton would be pitted by the team to change into a set of softs which Hamilton was audibly doubtful of. And at the restart, he would lose a position to Red Bull’s Sergio Perez who would end the race at P2, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz would end up winning the race, and Hamilton would eke out Charles Leclerc for a P3 finish.
While most would think that Hamilton just had his dream race after imploring the team a few weeks back to make the W13 as competitive as it can come race day at Silverstone, that would not be how Hamilton sound in his postrace interview saying:
“I gave it everything today. I was trying to chase down the Ferraris but congratulations to Carlos. They were just too quick today for us. But this is a huge bonus for us to be on the podium. I was chasing and chasing and chasing, but the pace was great on both sets of tyres and then at the end it was just a bit difficult when you know you’ve a Red Bull behind you that’s so fast on the straight. “I’m so grateful for the hard work all the team did to get an upgrade here – we’ve made a step closer to them, so we have to keep pushing. We’ve got some improvements to make.”
But that would not be the only thing Lewis would have say on. In one of his interviews in the media pen, he would be asked about his wheel-to-wheel battle with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. Specifically when the 2 went around Copse corner where everyone still has those images in their head of Max flying towards the barriers by fault of Lewis Hamilton. While we can debate all day long on who’s fault that was, Hamilton would take this opportunity to take a slight dig at Max saying:
A bunch of things went against me. The gap was like five or six seconds to catch the Ferraris but I had a really good long stint and thought we could maybe fight for the win, but the pit stop was not very quick and I struggled to warm up [the new tyres]. Charles did a great job, what a great battle. A very sensible driver, clearly very different to what we experienced here last year [with Verstappen]. We had to have the tyre deficit in order to get past him, but yeah. Really, really amazing weekend. We’re still on the mend, we’ve still got work to do. A big thank you to the team for all the upgrades this weekend but we need to keep pushing and stay positive. It’s great to be back in the fight.”
Hamilton would also be asked if he thinks this is the start of Mercedes’s climb back up the standings to which he would reply with:
I’d like to think we are on the turning point. We are still on the bend. It was a big improvement from the car, but we’ve still got work to do.
Team boss Toto Wolff would also be asked about the team’s performance and on whether or not he thinks the team is ready to battle with Ferrari and Red Bull in the championship. To which he would reply with:
“I was very pleased. The car had some performance today and we were in there to win the race and that is very encouraging. We lost a little bit of momentum after the restart, but we had almost no bouncing which was encouraging, but on the softs we couldn’t get the grip we would have wished at the end. Without the safety car he would probably have won the race and at the end, Perez was there and Sainz went. The most encouraging thing was that we had a car that was able to race. We were that close from winning it and it would have been so fantastic for him. I think we just want to, on our own, win races, that would be great. Be there, fight with them. That would be a target. So we have a car we can develop for next year also. It’s not a real love affair [yet]. We have just today for the first time started to flirt a bit with the car.”
Sky Sports F1 expert Martin Brundle would also say that he is feeling positive that Mercedes will inevitably back in the fight for the championship saying:
You do sense Mercedes are back in business, which is good news for us in terms of the rest of the season and a three-way fight. Lewis has never had a season in Formula 1 where he didn’t take a victory and all of a sudden it looks far more possible than it did three or four races ago.”
Moving forward, Mercedes technical director Mike Elliot has gone on record to admit that they have been snooping around the grid trying to see why and how other teams’ designs work. In his words:
“That’s not just the Red Bull concept, that’s looking at all the concepts up and down the grid and saying, ‘What looks interesting and why?I would say that what you try to do is to understand what you think is happening in the flow field, work out what you want to do with the flow field and then develop the bodywork shapes from there. We’ll go and look and say, ‘What do we think the Red Bull bodywork does and why does it do that?’ The same for all the other cars up and down the grid, and [we will] see what we can learn from that, see what we can apply. Maybe you’ll see changes this year, maybe you’ll see changes next year, or we’ll stick with where we are. They’re the questions we’re trying to answer.”
As we stand Mercedes is 3rd in the constructors’ championship, while both their drivers are far off from fighting for the drivers’ title, the constructors’ championship is well within their reach as they only trail Ferrari by 61 points and Red Bull by 124. Things change fast in the F1 world and with Mercedes still the only team of the 3 yet to have a car retirement due to technical mishaps, Mercedes may still have a decent chance to pull it back and contend for the title. But what do you think? Was Lewis through a slight shot at Max in his postrace comments? And what are the chances of having a 3 way battle for the title? Let us know in the comment section below and as always don’t forget to like and subscribe to the channel if you haven’t.
