Hamilton survives first lap collision with Verstappen & penalty to take 8th victory at Silverstone; Leclerc a noble P2 for Ferrari, Bottas P3; Verstappen taken to hospital after crash battling Lewis

The intense competition for the 2021 Formula 1 World Championship was inevitably going to get nastier than the forced public bonhomie between the two primary contenders for the title, Mercedes ace Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull’s superstar Mac Verstappen. On Sunday at the British Grand Prix in Round 10, things finally got properly unfriendly between two top contenders. After Verstappen won the first ever Sprint Qualifying race/non-race on Saturday to claim pole for today’s real race, Hamilton made no mystery of his determination to seize the top spot from the Dutchman early on. The two best drivers on the planet diced wheel-to-wheel from the moment the lights went out at the venerable Silverstone Circuit, the Mercedes man forcing Vertsappen to take unorthodox lines to keep Hamilton behind on the opening lap. The intense fight came to a head midway through Lap 1 when Hamilton tried an inside move heading into Copse at a rapid rate of knots. Verstappen, perhaps not believing Hamilton would stuff it in on the inside at that tricky section, appeared to lose sight of his rival and closed down to make the apex of the next corner, clipping Hamilton’s front left wheel/wing with his Red Bull’s rear right in the process. In an instant, the Red Bull’s rear right tire was off the rim and Verstappen went careening off the circuit through a very shallow and ineffective gravel trap and into a tire barrier sideways at nearly 180 mph. While Hamilton’s Silver Arrow suffered only very minor wing damage, Verstappen’s mount was essentially totaled and the unlucky Dutchman took an excruciatingly long time to emerge from his wrecked car. Young Max did eventually emerge under his own power but he was taken to hospital for precautionary reasons, probably to monitor any possible concussion symptoms after such a very high-G impact. In just one lap, Verstappen’s race was over and shortly thereafter Hamilton’s was also put at risk despite emerging from the contretemps unscathed.

After a long Red Flag period with the race restarting from a standing grid for a second time, the P2 Hamilton was immediately assessed a 10-second time penalty for causing the collision. While one can certainly debate the stewards’ decision to put the onus on Hamilton — it looked like a racing incident to these eyes — there was no arguing that Hamilton now would have a major time deficit to somehow make up. With the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc inheriting the race lead after the Hamilton-Verstappen shamazzle and driving confidently to maintain that P1, it looked like a big ask for Hamilton to catch the Monegasque when he came out of the pits down in P5, after serving the penalty during his first and only tire service on Lap 28, all the more so when  Leclerc held his lead after his own pit stop for fresh rubber on Lap 30. But Hamilton put his mind to the task, making short work of McLaren’s Lando Norris for P3 after gaining another position on pit rotation. That left only his Silver Arrows teammate Valtteri Bottas between him and Leclerc’s Ferrari. And with Hamilton closing down Leclerc’s Prancing Horse by nearly a second per lap, the team quickly gave Bottas team orders to let Hamilton through, which the Finn dutifully did on Lap 40 of this 52-lap contest. Unfortunately for Leclerc, it was then just a matter of time before the Mercedes’ superior pace saw the English seven-time World Champion right on his gearbox. And on Lap 50 Hamilton was able to sweep by Leclerc’s Prancing Horse, ironically with a nearly identical inside move through Stowe that had caused so much grief to Red Bull and Verstappen on that fateful opening lap. Perhaps fearing a similar fate, Leclerc ran wide and off the track momentarily and Hamilton flew away past him and on towards his remarkable eighth career British Grand Prix victory. Truly, Silverstone is a magic elixir for the seven-time champ.

For Red Bull, the results essentially could not have been worse. Not only were they left fuming when their championship leader was, from their perspective, taken out on the opening lap, thereby scoring zero points in either title chase, but their number two man Sergio Perez couldn’t overcome his Sprint spin on Saturday and also wound up finishing outside the points in P16, with only the cold comfort of “stealing” the bonus point for fastest lap from Hamilton due to a late switch to Soft Pirellis. With Bottas finishing a solid P3, that was the definition of a Pyrrhic victory and the combination of the massive Mercedes points haul and a pointless day for them in Britain saw Red Bull’s lead in the Constructors’ dwindle to just 4 points and Verstappen’s advantage over Hamilton shrink to 12 points. It’s no wonder the irate Red Bull team executives were lobbying for Hamilton to receive a one-race suspension as a more proper penalty. But the brewing bad blood between the two top teams will only add spice to the rest of the season and now Verstappen and Hamilton can stop pretending to like each other, at least in the heat of battle. In short, whether you approve or disapprove of Hamilton’s ballsy move on Verstappen today, it’s now added that much needed frisson of hostility that any great F1 Championship requires to be truly compelling. Game well and truly on.

Top 10 finishers of the British GP:

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race is in a fortnight’s time, at the Hungaroring in Hungary. So the bad blood between the Red Bull and Mercedes camps will have just enough time to fester. Hopefully Verstappen will also have time to heal up so we can see what he has in store to take the fight to Hamilton now that the swords have truly been unsheathed. Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!