That Max Verstappen won an eighth race this season and his first British Grand Prix almost seemed immaterial to the 160,000 who packed into Silverstone for Sunday’s race.
Verstappen’s steady march to a third straight world title continues unabated to leave him now 99 points clear of teammate Sergio Perez. His dominance is such, he’s also leading the constructors’ championship in his own right.
But for those who made up a record weekend attendance for the British GP – 480,000 over the course of it – they briefly dared to dream of a first victory for Lando Norris.
In a McLaren which looks unrecognisable in both its shape and speed at Silverstone he got off to a flying start to lead and left Verstappen in the unfamiliar position of second in 2023.
The roar from around the track was deafening but it was short-lived as the Dutchman inevitably made his way past and disappeared into the distance. Norrie later mused: “I brought the fight to Max for as long as possible.”
Even a virtual safety car on lap 33, then full safety car a lap later when Kevin Magnussen’s engine blew, could do little to deter the runaway champion. Within moments of the restart five laps later, he again turned the race into a solo procession.
Such is the predictability of the result this season – this was a Formula One record-equalling 11th straight victory by Red Bull – his win almost seemed secondary to the home fans.
The real race was for second at the resumption of racing with 14 laps remaining between Norris and Lewis Hamilton, for whom the safety car came at the perfect time enabling him to pit and gain a place on Oscar Piastri.
McLaren have been electric all weekend, thanks to a major upgrade that has seen their car looking mightily akin to the Red Bull. But when Norris was told that Hamilton had gone for soft tyres rather than Norris’ hard, he was particularly unimpressed, fearful of a pass.
He knew he needed time to get the hards up to speed, which meant a few nail-biting laps with Hamilton on his tail. Hamilton made three successive attempts to pass on the opening restart lap.
A lap later at Copse, he found himself side by side with Norris in a thrilling wheel to wheel race but couldn’t find a way past. By the next lap, DRS was enabled to give the seven-time world champion nearly an extra 10mph on the straight but it proved insufficient.
By then, Norris had the rubber working as he wanted in a McLaren, which Hamilton later called “a rocket ship”. From there, it was about damage limitation with his tyres badly graining.
He was briefly given hope when Norris was given a final warning for cutting corners. Another indiscretion would have equated to a five-second penalty, the same threat hanging over Hamilton’s teammate George Russell.
In the end, no penalties came for either and Hamilton’s P3 put two Britons on the podium at Silverstone for the first time since David Coulthard led a home one-two ahead of Eddie Irvine in 1999. In addition, there were four Brits in the top 10 with Russell fourth behind Australian rookie Piastri and Alexander Albon taking his Williams to eighth.
Organisers had been fearful that Just Stop Oil protestors might find a way to disrupt the race but there was no track invasion as there had been a year ago.
It wasn’t a British win the spectators had perhaps hoped for but Hamilton credited them for catapulting from seventh to the podium.
Of his drive, he said: “I didn’t do it, the crowd did it. I felt the energy and support and that’s why we got back up there. We’re not so far away. We can keep pushing and catch those guys at the front.”
