Formula 1 Winners & Losers: British Grand Prix
Photo from Planet F1
This was a weekend full of unbelievable racing, while also a reminder of how far safety has come in this sport.
Here are this weeks winners & losers.
Losers
5. Alex Albon
Williams were super excited about a new upgrade package going on Albon’s car that was going to give them an extra second of pace.
Unfortunately, poor qualifying strategy meant that we didn’t get to see it’s full effects, and a crash on the opening lap kept Albon out of the race meaning he didn’t get a chance to show it off again.
A tough weekend overall when it started with so many expectations.
4. Yuki Tsunoda
The first rule in Formula 1 is to not crash into your teammate.
Yuki did, and got a penalty for it which put him 14th while his teammate Pierre Gasly did not finish.
Oops.
3. Daniel Ricciardo
It just hasn’t gotten better for Daniel.
And it needs to, or else he’ll find himself on the outside of this sport looking in.
2. Max Verstappen
Max was in great shape to win this race, but one wide corner gave him a flat and damage on the backend that he couldn’t recover from.
What should have been a fight for a win ended up with him holding on to 7th for dear life.
He lost ground in the championship, but definitely not as much as he should’ve…
1. Ferrari
I was going to make the top loser this weekend Charles Leclerc, but that’s unfair to Leclerc.
He did well enough to get himself a win after Verstappen’s damage, but when everyone except him pit during a late safety car, he ended up having to fight for dear life on older and slower tires.
He did a good job fighting, but he fell short and finished 4th.
And he was not happy afterwards…
Only Ferrari could find a way to win the race and still not actually help their driver get into the title fight.
Winners
5. Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes had been saying this was the weekend they expected to be better, and Lewis didn’t disappoint with a 3rd place finish at his home race.
He even had enough pace at one point during the race that it looked possible for him to fight for the win.
Mercedes keep pushing forward to join Ferrari and Red Bull.
Slowly but surely…
4. Haas F1 Team
The first double points finish for Haas in almost 3 years!
Kevin Magnussen finished 10th and Mick Schumacher got his first ever points in F1 with an 8th place finish.
Not only is it a great result in general, but it’s even better when you remember how bad their qualifying session was yesterday.
A great race from the American team.
3. Sergio Perez
Early damage to Perez put him in horrible shape considering Silverstone is the slowest pit lane and longest pit lane. He was dead last of the runners and had a ton of ground to make up.
And he did. All the way up to finish 2nd.
He was quick, and he was feisty at the end to hold off others and keep 2nd place.
A very deserving driver of the day.
2. Carlos Sainz
Carlos Sainz was, allegedly, supposed to back up the pack after the safety car so his teammate Charles Leclerc could win.
But Ferrari pit Carlos for new tires, and Carlos had finished 2nd so many times before.
So he took matters into his own hands, overtook his teammate and went on to win his first ever race.
A great weekend for someone who has had a tough amount of luck so far this year.
1. The FIA
Back in 2018, the FIA introduced the halo to open wheel racing to improve the safety of drivers and specifically their heads.
Since then, countless crashes have been much better off thanks to the halo, and today alone we had two separate incidents, one in F2 and one in F1, where the halo protected a drivers head from either another car or scraping on the ground, and both Zhou Guanyu and Roy Nissany were ok after the incidents.
If this race took place in 2017, it’s possible Formula 1 media is talking about two separate deaths of drivers today.
The FIA is the winner today, and will continue to be the winner every day an accident like this happens where a driver survives a horrible incident.
