by VALERIO BARRETTA
F1 Silverstone, the report cards of the promoted
1. Lewis Hamilton. Even the sun came to Silverstone to see what was about to happen. Standing in the stands or glued to the TV, cheering with strangers or getting excited in private: Isn’t this what sport provides? And isn’t that exactly what we experienced yesterday? Regardless of the cheering, if you weren’t moved yesterday I wouldn’t even want to take the elevator with you. Yesterday a beautiful story was told, of suffering and redemption. Sir Lewis who after 56 races returned to being king, and after 52 laps he returned to being a child, crying his eyes out with his dad before a liberating race under the grandstand with the Union Jack. He got everything right on a strategic level: “No intermediates, it’s dry in a lot of places“, he told his engineer on lap 21 when he was offered a pit stop; someone who stayed at the Monte Carlo Casino can also learn. Yesterday Verstappen was also smiling, who had very tense stories with Hamilton at Silverstone. Norris and Russell found a way to smile, who, given how the race went, only wanted to cry. It was a victory that brought everyone together, except those who called him boiled not only for the sake of provoking but because sport – like everything else – is not for everyone. Hamilton may have his flaws, he tends to get demoralized without the car, but if he has one… he’s still himself. And he gave us a race worthy of a movie, like the one with Brad Pitti of which he is co-producer (by the way, congratulations for the originality of the title). We have all witnessed a historic moment: we will always remember the 2024 Silverstone GP, it was a pleasure to experience it and also to talk about it.
2. Those with the suitcase. Specifically, Nico Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainzbesides Hamilton of course. They won’t stay where they are and psychologically they might even give up, since Sir Lewis is going to Ferrari, Hülk is going to Sauber and the Spaniard is too good not to find a place. Excluding Schumaxer, who for concentration and mental level does another sport, and excluding Hamilton for obvious reasons, Hülkenberg and Sainz are the best of the weekend. The first one got behind the Ferraris in qualifying (with an updated Haas, yes, but one would be the Haas and the other would be the Ferrari) and came in sixth on both Saturday and Sunday: It’s incredible that he was out for three years. from an F1 in which the various Latifi, Mazepin, Zhou, Sargeant and who knows how many more I forget grazed and graze. Sainz: fifth with the fourth car, more could not be done. It was the only light in the darkness Ferrari. The only one smiling, just like two years ago at Silverstone. He is four points behind Leclerc despite having one race less and having to find a solution: he doesn’t invent anything because sometimes there’s nothing to inventyou just have to be realistic and bring home the best possible result. Qualities that the teammate does not yet have.
3. Andrea Star. McLaren failed, and we agree. I would save the words of its team principal, however: “We would do a couple of things differently now that we understand what the result was. We would definitely stop Oscar on the same lap as Lando when we went with the intermediates. With Norris it was perhaps more convenient to go on a new set of mediums, because we had two sets of mediums and there was that possibility. Let’s take these opportunities to review them and improve.“. There were mistakes (and they compromised another victory) but at least they were detailed and admitted. Listening to Vasseur, it seems like we are facing a mix between Spalletti and Count Mascetti: quibbles and half-hearted answers, an annoying tendency to blame everyone but himself.
F1 Silverstone, the report cards of the failed
3. Iron Sergio Perez. Now the news has come out that he has to stay within 100 points of Verstappen after Spa to have the renewal and not risk being cut mid-season. The fact that he signed it tells once again the level of ambition and self-esteem of a driver that Verstappen (with more delay than other teammates) has disheartened and sportingly cancelled. In qualifying he lost for the seventh time in two years to Sargeant, who has the same chances of racing in F1 in 2025 as I do, since 2021 he has been giving illusions at the beginning of the season and then promptly losing himself with the first updates. Keeping him only made sense in an era of domination: this way it doesn’t, and instead forces Max to fight alone.
2. Iron McLaren. Anyone unfortunate enough to read this corner of freedom knows how in previous episodes I have emphasized how McLaren must get used to the rarefied air in order to compete at the top. It’s not enough to equip yourself to win, you also need to “know how to win”that is, having the right coolness in the hottest moments. Yesterday Piastri was deprived of the opportunity to play for a podium and maybe something more by leaving him at the mercy of the water with slick tyres; the opposite happened to Norris: one lap too many with intermediate tyres on a dry track. Not to mention Lando going long in the pit stop, the 4″5 pit stop, theyet another start where Norris was the sheep and Verstappen the wolf. In short, there is a lack of experience, but those who want to be champions must be able to seize the moment and learn quickly. If in two months you have more regrets than victories, you need to wake up.
1. Ferrari. Frankly, no one is safe except Sainz. Friday’s tests – although they were also done by other teams, I’m thinking of Mercedes in Monte-Carlo – turned the clock back by two months: whichever way you look at it, it was a bad sign, because Ferrari will not have suffered from proposing but in fact he raced with a car that was five races old. He confirmed the image of a team that has chronic difficulties in developingwhen even Haas (with all due respect) is capable of doing it. From the ancestral problem of developments, the critical issues of the weekend were born in a chain reaction: you sacrificed the free practice to understand the path to take; you took away the confidence of a driver (it could have been Leclerc or Sainz) by making him run with a package that would not have been useful to you over the weekend; in qualifying you mismanaged Sainz’s Q3 by sending him late on the track and forcing him to fight for crumbs with Piastri and Alonso. In the race, then, a strategic masterpiece with the intermediates for Leclerc at the first drops when everyone knew that the real rain would arrive later, which is what actually happened: Charles from lap 20 to 27 he lost about 100″ (so 1’40”) from Norris, that’s 12″5 per lap. You are in the first half of the race, even if you are lucky you don’t have the pace to stay in front, you just threw away points. Leclerc could have finished in the top-5 and it would have been a great race, but – it must be repeated – he is not as solid as Sainz especially in difficult situations. ”I’ll look again to see if I could make a better decision with the information I had.” (his words): he may have had misleading information, but the most important one is his (the track) and he has to decide. Here too, the hand goes back to the 2022 Interlagos qualifiers: the mistakes of others do not justify Leclerc, who must assert himself, he must know when to stop and when not to. Otherwise, you are champions only on paper, while those who are also champions in numbers (Hamilton and Verstappen) demonstrated it once again yesterday.
#Report #Cards #Silverstone #podium