F1, GP Silverstone: the report cards of the promoted
1. McLaren and Williams. No, we are not in the nineties (unfortunately), but McLaren and Williams are back at the top, at home. A breeze of pleasant nostalgia even if the real protagonists of this British miracle are all from generation Z: Lando NorrisOscars PlatesAlex Albon. The former platinum finisher succeeds in making an eighth place in qualifying and in the race a result of “Meh, it could have been done even better”, considering the results of the free practice: a marvel and not from today, a man who got back up, so very good twice. On Lando it’s clear that it’s a question of when and not if: the boy will make it, has broad shoulders and enough brains to understand that growling at Max is a waste of time. Sensational defense on Hamilton with double compound disadvantage and hard rubber than Schumaxer roguely cools them back from the Safety Car. Piastri deserves the podium as much as Norris after an abandoned chick Austrian weekend. The fact that a different track and car updates can take you from the nadir to the zenith proves that any kind of F1 report card is to be taken as a bar monologue. Prosit at a distance.
2. George Russell. The only one brit really disappointed with the home race. Not because of him, but because he comes screwed by the Safety Car and from uncle Lewis, repaying part of the debt with fate in the challenge with Hamilton, won in 2022 with several episodes in favor. He too would be on the podium: fantastic stint with the soft, signature overtaking on Leclerc (who, however, didn’t go above all on the hard). The same that Hamilton tried to do on Norris, but without scoring.
3. Rain, which hasn’t been there. Usually one hopes in the water to see something livelier ahead. With Max you have to pray that there is always sun: even if it had rained, with a race without the Safety Car, we would have talked about a collective humiliation, seeing the times of FP3.
F1, GP Silverstone: the report cards of the failed ones
3. Aston Martin. But how? And the update that was supposed to catch up with Red Bull? Nando, wasn’t everything supposed to turn upside down at Silverstone? Let’s be clear, compared to last year we’re still talking about a triple jump that not even Jonathan Edwards. But if he also struggles in Budapest – a theoretically friendly circuit – there is a suspicion that he has definitely returned to the ranks.
2. Sergio Perez. I could copy-paste Austria’s report card. Same performance, same judgement: even with the extenuating circumstances that can also be granted to him in qualifying, five consecutive exclusions from Q3 are embarrassing. However, they are convenient for Red Bull, so the domain becomes attributable more to Max than to the machine. Both titles win them anyway.
1. Ferrari. Nothing, just a Binotto in the paddock at Silverstone and the cinema starts again, among other things a year after Sainz’s half-time victory. Joking aside, part of the problem always seems to me to be this: missing people from the track, capable of seeing as well as looking, active and not passive. The “we have been conservative” of Vasseur I also read it like this: not only not very brave, but also lazy in reading the race. They had some data from Friday and perhaps they were satisfied with that, a pity that the track was totally different, much colder and with much less degradation. Hence Leclerc’s early stop with the hards that don’t light up and the failure to choose the softs in the final stint: you used them, so what? Yesterday the only one of the top 10 who had a new soft in the final was Perez, and before that Russell had done more than half the race with the soft. Ferrari had little to lose yesterday, and they lost it without even trying, in a GP that in some ways reminded me of Budapest 2022: same stubbornness with the hard tyres, despite the fact that much more could have been daring, an equally cold track and the same problems in terms of pace. Different chain of command, to demonstrate (as if it were needed) that it is not enough to change a team principal or strategist: there are problems relating to mentality, nose, way of working, and – provided that people are right – they need to be given time to sort them out.
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