The 2022 British Grand Prix may have started with horrific scenes, but it certainly ended with the best period of racing so far this season – and in the eyes of many, the best for years.
Interestingly, in the modern era a good Silverstone race is not guaranteed as the high-speed track layout used to practically guarantee higher downforce and therefore faster cars were very difficult to catch and pass. This scenario could indeed have happened had Max Verstappen not been unfortunate to run over some of the AlphaTauri’s bodywork after he had overtaken Carlos Sainz after ditching pole with a weak final sector. That was a bigger factor than the yellow flag being raised after Charles Leclerc’s short spin…
Once again the Red Bull pack looked like the class of the field before fate intervened, but Ferrari fought back to take victory, although not without making things much worse and denying Leclerc an almost certain victory which he had been working brilliantly to you look around. The Scuderia’s impenetrable safety car for the then race leader set off the exciting flag battles, which confirmed that this year’s rule changes are working as F1 intended, along with Pirelli’s tire developments.
But there were many more takeaways from the 10th race of the season, which we present here.
Ferrari committed to race strategy and team orders
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
1. Ferrari still hasn’t improved in one key area (AK)
While Carlos Sainz scored a popular win – he was applauded in the post-race press conference by the assembled journalists, where he spoke as eloquently and thoughtfully as ever – Ferrari’s triumph came with a cloud darker than those that had showered Silverstone for 20 minutes before the first start.
This was due to the team orders saga in which the Scuderia found itself embroiled after Verstappen dropped out of the race. Leclerc, despite a damaged front wing, was averaging a lap 0.3 seconds faster than Sainz at this stage of the race and wanted to be allowed. Ferrari’s choice to wait before challenging Sainz helped Lewis Hamilton close and then, with Mercedes leading, the red team again opted to give Sainz a chance to pick up the pace with Leclerc returning to run tight behind him.
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To his credit, Sainz allowed Leclerc to pass when he was told to and showed his typical skill in recommending a DRS train to try and hold off the oncoming Hamilton late on. Although the late safety car made the most of this controversy, Leclerc was even further ahead by the time Esteban Ocon retired, perhaps meaning the next intra-team saga Ferrari became embroiled in never happened. happened…
Ferrari opted to pit Sainz against race leader Leclerc, giving the Spaniard the advantage
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
2. Ferrari’s explanation of Leclerc’s safety car strategy is confusing (AK)
When race director Nils Wittich called the intervention of the safety car when Ocon stopped on the National pit straight approaching Copse, Leclerc was at Stowe. But engineer Xavier Marcos declared his car window “closed”. However, Sainz was relegated from more than four seconds back – as was Hamilton and most of the others further back.
Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto – who was caught talking to Leclerc immediately after the Monegasque driver got out of his car after the race, which Binotto said was a message to “just stay calm because the way he was driving was fantastic” – gave the following explanation why Leclerc was missed in his 14 laps.
“Our two cars,” he said, “were too close to both stop. We were the only ones on the outside the two cars were fighting for good positions. The other teams only had one car each so it was certainly a lot easier. In our case, we [had] both cars and we decided there wasn’t enough distance to stop both because the second car would lose time in the pit stop and go back on the track.
“Why we decided to stop [only] Carlos [was] because Charles had track position – he was leading, so he would remain the leader of the race. [And] because his tires were fresher. He was six or seven laps short [compared] of Carlos in better shape. And Carlos, by stopping and being second, he was going to defend at least in the first few corners, where we knew that starting hard would be a little more difficult.
“That was the reason we decided [what we did]. We were then hoping for more tire degradation on the softs to give Charles maybe a difficult three or four laps initially but then recover later. But the software didn’t deteriorate as we had hoped.
“If we had stopped, maybe the others might have stayed out and [Leclerc] maybe he would have been fourth on soft tires with other cars in front of him. Would he regain his positions? I’m not sure.”
Binotto’s explanation can be summed up like this: Ferrari wanted Sainz to drop out on the restart and protect Leclerc with his fresh softs, giving the leader space to warm his hards back up to their optimum operating range and then pull back again. after the softies of the cars behind had lost their blade. But apart from Sainz refusing to do what was suggested, the software didn’t degrade as expected.
Perhaps the bigger mystery is why Ferrari didn’t think the 4.2-second gap between their cars on the lap where the safety car came out, with Hamilton still almost two seconds back, was enough for a double-stack stop. when it clearly was.
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Perez still managed to climb from last places to second on a bad day for Red Bull
Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images
3. Red Bull is still the fastest team even on a bad day (MK)
Sticking with the super times from Silverstone, Mercedes still have a long way to go before they can match Red Bull. His fastest lap of the weekend was around 0.509 ahead of the next best Ferrari. Even if circumstances went against the RB18 to end its six-race winning streak, it was an off day, but by no means a step back.
In Azerbaijan, Max Verstappen urged his team to give him more speed per lap. Pole followed in Canada and the car was quite capable of it again at Silverstone. Verstappen not topping qualifying was not, as the defending champion claimed, solely the result of Charles Leclerc spinning to cause a yellow flag. Verstappen was up in the incident but could still have topped the time screens if he hadn’t messed up his final sector.
On Sunday, at the red-flag restart, he had ditched his soft medium tires to avoid overtaking Carlos Sainz at Abbey. But then the defending champion sat on Ferrari’s number six to pressure the Spaniard into making a mistake at Becketts that looked set to hand Verstappen victory.
It was pure bad luck that Verstappen’s afternoon was undone by going through debris from the AlphaTauri crash to damage his bodywork and instinctively making a pit stop to repair a possible puncture. After that, the car was far from its optimum and Verstappen’s head dropped as he languished at the bottom of the top 10.
Sergio Perez, who was unsuccessful in qualifying before beating Leclerc to force an additional early pit stop, recovered well to battle Fernando Alonso before pouncing into second after the safety car. Not only was the RB18 still the machine to beat, but while Ferrari stumbled, Red Bull lost a position in the teams’ standings on their only bad day by a palatable 13 points.
Mercedes closed the gap on Ferrari and Red Bull at Silverstone
Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images
4. There’s more reason for cautious Mercedes to be optimistic (MK)
Mercedes’ title ambitions were boosted internally at the Spanish Grand Prix. George Russell stoically defended against Max Verstappen on his way to third, while Lewis Hamilton recovered from contact in one lap to finish fifth. Toto Wolff reckoned that without the early entanglement, Hamilton could have won. But as Autosport debunked, that was an overly positive spin.
At Silverstone, however, Hamilton could grab a remarkable ninth home win. Although boosted by Verstappen’s injury, Perez’s early pit stop and the latest misstep in Ferrari’s strategy, the W13 was much improved. The smooth Silverstone asphalt is accompanied by a significant upgrade to Silver Arrows to reduce bounce and unlock more speed.
The supertimes reflected this, as Mercedes was not only the third-fastest manufacturer after only qualifying sixth in Canada, but was just 0.092 (according to the supertime metric) behind Ferrari. Hamilton’s average 10 fastest laps were second only to Carlos Sainz. Performance marked a step forward. His opportunistic double overtaking through Club sent fans into a frenzy – another indication that Hamilton is finding an extra level at home – before he was run out by Sergio Perez.
The W13 is a sensitive beast, so the new pace may not last at every track, but at least there was more evidence at last weekend’s show for Mercedes to take heart from. Certainly compared to his false dawn in Barcelona. Although Wolff is much more cautious after Spain’s gains were only fleeting… He said: “At Barcelona we had moments where we saw light at the end of the tunnel. Then the next three street tracks proved us wrong, so I don’t want to talk us down or be too optimistic at this stage.”
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Leclerc and Hamilton, along with Perez, engaged in an incredible battle in the closing stages
Photo by: James Sutton / Motorsport Images
5. Leclerc makes the passing move of the season so far (AK)
Yes, this is a fairly subjective record. But before those prone to seething with anger at perceived biases for or against certain drivers or nationalities, try to remember the fun in people with differing opinions…
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