Martin Brundle on the British Grand Prix results

Former Formula 1 driver and Sky Sports F1 commentator Martin Brundle summarised the results of the British Grand Prix.

Hamilton’s relief was clear to anyone who saw his initially uncontrollable tears and heard his heartfelt speeches on the radio. The demons of Abu Dhabi 2021 and the lack of wins in the last 56 races in a weak car were finally destroyed to some extent for him and Mercedes.

Surrounded by much younger riders, Lewis somehow found the motivation to continue training, studying, travelling and believing in himself over the past two seasons.

Silverstone hosted a fantastic four-day festival, despite the efforts of the dreadful weather. Fortunately, on the day of the race, instead of heavy rain, there were light showers, which even brightened up the Grand Prix.

The three Britons who were in the top three at the start, after George Russell’s great effort to take pole, ahead of Hamilton and the popular Lando Norris in third, were a crowd pleaser.

Max Verstappen started fourth despite underbody damage after driving into the gravel, driving a Red Bull that no longer looks like the fastest car.

Ferrari lacks top speed. After the glorious victory in Monaco, they even had to abandon aerodynamic innovations to escape the swing. Charles Leclerc is going through a difficult time and scored points only once in four races after his victory in Monaco.

Particularly painful for Ferrari was the defeat of Nico Hulkenberg, who drove their customer car out of the Haas F1. However, the team believes that they will quickly overcome the problems.

There was so much going on during the race that I can’t remember the chronology of it all. We were completely engrossed in the commentary booth watching the events unfold as the race moved from one stage to the next.

The four riders are convinced that they should have won.

Russell had a great start from pole and stayed in the lead. With rain forecast he struggled a bit as Hamilton used him as a guide and overtook him nicely on lap 18. But on lap 20 Norris passed them both.

Russell’s Mercedes suffered a coolant leak and flashed warning lights for a number of laps before unfortunately having to retire on lap 33. But not before he lost the lead and then pitted behind Hamilton to make a double pit stop, which always involves waiting while the team regroups and prepares the tyres for the second driver, costing valuable time.

As a reminder, each team only has one pit stop area for both cars, so if they are running close together during a race but it starts to rain or the safety car appears, the second of the two drivers will have to wait for service or drive another lap.

By lap 19 the track was already wet for slicks and too dry for intermediate tyres, which didn’t stop Leclerc and Perez from taking the risk of being the first to switch to intermediate tyres, and immediately regretting it.

It was clear that the McLaren drivers felt more confident and had better grip in such conditions, while the Mercedes drivers had to enter a wide safety zone at the first corner. The racing skills demonstrated by all competitors were simply epic in challenging conditions, driving very powerful cars on the incredibly fast Silverstone circuit.

The rain continued and it was time to switch to intermediate tyres. Verstappen, Sainz and Hulkenberg did it on lap 26. Hamilton, Russell and Norris stopped a lap later, which was quite normal.

For some reason McLaren didn’t double pit and instead of letting Oscar Piastri lose a few seconds while waiting for service they left him on track. But it was already too wet for slicks and he lost a lot of time.

In the closing stages of the race on fresh Medium tyres, Piastri was so fast that he becomes the second to claim he could have won the race. He only finished fourth.

Mercedes and McLaren were battling closely, which gave Red Bull more freedom to make the best decision on Verstappen’s pit stop, as Perez could be ignored – he was far behind.

The question was when to remove the worn intermediate tyres on a dry track and which slicks to use for the finish of the race.

Unfortunately, McLaren and Norris made two mistakes. Lando came into the pit lane on lap 39, a lap behind Hamilton, Verstappen and Piastri, drove past the service area on a wet surface and had a slow pit stop. To make matters worse, the team asked him if he wanted to be Hard like Max or Soft like Lewis.

This was strange because the team had two new sets of Medium tyres in stock for both drivers especially for the race. But Norris got Soft, and it wasn’t his decision.

Piastri was literally flying on a fresh set of Medium and Norris was the third who can claim that he could have won the race if things had gone differently.

In the early stages of the race, Verstappen lacked pace on the dry track and said he had set his sights on finishing fifth or sixth. But he didn’t give up, working well with his engineer and warming up the new Hard kit to chase down Norris and Hamilton late in the race.

He easily passed Norris, who was struggling to find balance in the Soft, and found himself a second and a half behind Hamilton as they crossed the line to a cheering response from the crowd.

Max is not the fourth driver who feels he should have won the race, he was pleasantly surprised with second place and extended his lead in the championship to 84 points.

Of course, the fourth driver who could have won did so. Hamilton controlled his tyres well in the closing laps to hold off his old foe and take his ninth victory at Silverstone, 17 years after his first Formula 1 appearance. His career total now stands at 104 wins and 199 podiums.

He also became the sixth winner in 12 races this season. Last season we had just three winners and I have no doubt that we now have a truly epic 18 months of Formula 1 racing ahead of us before the all-new regulation cars of 2026 arrive.