Silverstone, the 12th round of the Formula 1 World Championship
By De Vlad Roman,
General Manager, Smart Games
On July 7, Formula 1 arrived at Silverstone for the 12th round of the world championship, the English circuit is a legend, in fact the first circuit where a Formula 1 grand prix was held in 1950. After the end of the Second World War Mondial, air base number 47 of the Royal Air Force at Silverstone, respectively the three runways of the airfield arranged in a triangle, were transformed into a motor racing track. The first race here took place in 1948 under the auspices of the Royal Automobile Club, so that two years later, on May 13, 1950, it hosted the first race of the newly established “Drivers’ World Championship” which would later become known as the Formula World Championship One.
The Silverstone circuit has a capacity of 160,000 spectators, is owned by the “British Racing Drivers’ Club” and is currently used in multiple Auto-Moto competitions.
It is 5,891 meters long with 18 legendary corners including Maggotts, Becketts or Abbey, two straight lines on which with activated DRS you can reach speeds of 330 km/h, 52 laps of the circuit are covered and in each lap an average of 40 gear changes are made.
For the British Grand Prix all the teams were expected to make new changes to their cars… and with the exception of Ferrari they did. The biggest update was that of the Alpha Tauri, which came with a new chassis and modified diffuser, bodywork, rear wing, rear suspension. Mercedes, Aston Martin and Alpine modified the front fenders, Haas updated the front suspension and brake vents, but the most notable update was from McLaren.
The first two practices on Friday showed us an equally strong Red Bull and a sensational Williams through Alexander Albon who was just 0.218 seconds behind Max.
On Saturday it rained during practice but for qualifying everyone expected dry weather so after a confusing Q1 with rain and mixed tires (intermediate for Ferrari and Haas, slicks for the rest), we have a Sergio Perez who for the fifth time in a row he failed to qualify for the upper stage of qualifying, joined on the eliminated list by Tsunoda, Zhou, De Vries and Magnussen.
In Q2 the track dries quickly, there are some syncopations but in the end Verstappen, Albon, Alonso, Gasly and both pilots of the Mecedes, Ferrari and McLaren teams remain in the race.
The pleasant surprise is McLarren, whose updates have paid off to the joy of the fans, they ranked in the next two positions on the starting grid behind the same Max Verstappen, the man who this year never placed below the 2nd place in the qualifications.
Sunday’s race had everything, a strong start by Lando Norris overtaking Max, his return to the lead in lap 5, the neutralization that robbed Piastri of the podium, Lando’s resistance to the attacks of Hamilton wearing front softs of the McLarren driver’s hard work, the recovery of Perez who managed to finish 6th after starting from 16th position and again Ferrari’s disillusionment with the strategy and race pace.
The podium with two British presences, one established (Lewis Hamilton) and the other up and coming (Lando Norris) plus a British team (McLarren) brought happiness to the 480,000 supporters present at Silverstone over the 3 days.
The driver of the day was named none other than Lando Norris and he fully deserved it both for the courage to pass Verstappen and the way he stood up to Hamilton.
