A long-time injustice is rectified - British GP takeaways

Lando Norris may not have delivered the most dominant drive of his Formula 1 career at Silverstone, but his long-awaited home victory was no less deserved.

In a race shaped by changing conditions, split-second decisions, and tiny margins, Norris emerged as the one title contender who stayed mistake-free while chaos unfolded around him.

He might have needed a stroke of luck from the safety car and Oscar Piastri’s costly misjudgement, but keeping it clean and capitalising when it mattered helped him realise a childhood dream.

Here’s what we learned from the British GP weekend.

Norris’s win was well deserved

Norris may not have looked like the fastest driver at Silverstone on Sunday, and even he admitted that winning the way he won the race wasn’t ideal, but the Briton had nothing to reproach himself about.

Yes, Norris got a bit lucky, but he was also the one championship contender who didn’t make any significant or costly mistakes, and sometimes that’s the way to win races.

“Maybe not the best way to win, I’m not going to say it’s my best win, that’s not true,” admitted Norris. “But in terms of what it means to win here at home, the want, the desire to do it in front of my own grandstand, my family, my friends, McLaren, His Royal Highness is here, to win in front of all of them and to make amends for last year makes it all even more special. So, yep, very memorable.”

Piastri’s error was marginal, and he wouldn’t have been in a position to even make the mistake had it not been for the safety car triggered by other drivers, but it was still an error on his part.

There will always be questions about how unfair the penalty was or how inconsistent the stewards were, given George Russell had done something similar in Canada and had got away with it, but there were subtle differences in the two incidents that justify Piastri’s penalty.

The Australian should have won the race, there is no doubt about it. He led almost from the start and had a pretty flawless race until his safety car incident.

But in the extremely championship fight with Norris, the tiniest of mistakes are going to be costly, and this was the case on Sunday.

Norris, for his part, didn’t make costly errors and while it’s hard to argue that he was biding his time behind Piastri, it was the Briton who took the biggest trophy home. At the end of the day, that’s all that will matter to him.

Hamilton can be encouraged

Lewis Hamilton‘s run of consecutive podiums at Silverstone came to an end on Sunday, the Ferrari driver’s streak stopping at 12 after coming home in fourth.

However, the weekend should have served as encouragement for the seven-time world champion, who enjoyed one of his strongest grands prix of the year.

Granted, the chance of finishing on the podium was right there for Hamilton, and being beaten by Nico Hülkenberg in a Sauber was not a scenario he would have expected.

Also, the Briton was still his usual downbeat self after the race, admitting there’s no way Ferrari can fight for victories at the moment, and that the car was a handful in the tricky conditions.

Still, Hamilton came through the field in strong fashion and had he pitted a lap later near the end of the race, he might not have gone off and lost valuable time to Hülkenberg.

At least Ferrari appears to have sort of found its stride, and it’s consistently hanging around behind McLaren in the absence of Mercedes and Verstappen from the leading positions.

The Scuderia should be introducing its new rear suspension at Spa later this month, which should offer more encouragement to Hamilton, still seeking his first podium with Ferrari.

Justice was done for Hülkenberg

Few moments in Formula 1 have resonated with the sense of overdue justice quite like Hülkenberg’s maiden podium at Silverstone.

After 239 starts and 15 years in the series, Hülkenberg finally broke through, finishing third at Silverstone in a performance that even the German himself failed to understand.

“I don’t think I can comprehend what we’ve just done,” he said on the radio after crossing the finish line.

The paddock’s reaction underscored just how deserved the moment was, as fellow drivers, including former team-mates and rivals, celebrated Hülkenberg’s achievement.

Verstappen’s celebration as he drove alongside the German on the cool-down lap was the perfect reflection of how most of the paddock felt.

Hülkenberg’s podium was more than a personal milestone; it was a symbolic righting of a long-standing wrong in F1, a journey marked by patience and quiet determination.

In the process, he got rid of one of F1’s most unwanted records, which was also reason to celebrate.

Verstappen made a rare driving error

On Saturday, Verstappen stunned the paddock when he came out of nowhere to snatch pole position in a Red Bull that had no business being on top of the grid.

On Sunday, the world champion showed he is only human, making an uncharacteristic error that ruined his chances of fighting for a podium finish.

Even without the mistake, it seemed highly unlikely that Verstappen would have been able to put up a fight against the McLarens, with Piastri having been so much faster than him before the final restart.

Verstappen’s mistake was not the only reason why he was unable to fight for victory, as Red Bull’s risky low-downforce set-up didn’t really suit the conditions on Sunday.

The “skinny” rear wing set-up left Verstappen with a car that was very hard to drive, particularly in the wet.

The spin was one of the – if not the only – real driving mistakes Verstappen has made this year, although given the pace of the McLarens, it probably only cost him two positions at worst.

Mercedes got almost everything wrong

Mercedes had a weekend to forget at Silverstone, and while not all of it was of its own making, it did pay the price for the wrong strategic calls.

First, the team decided to pit Russell and Kimi Antonelli before the start to switch to hard tyres. It was a gamble that several other drivers took, and one that backfired very quickly, as the track didn’t dry up fast enough.

Russell wasted 10 laps at the back of the field before finally switching back to intermediate tyres.

Later, he was one of the first drivers to move back to slicks. Rejoining the race, the Briton spun and lost even more ground before he finally started to make some progress towards the front.

Eventually, he recovered to 10th place, a major underachievement given his fourth-place starting position.

Antonelli’s race came to an end when he was hit from behind by Isack Hadjar, the Italian losing almost the entirety of his rear diffuser.

“Everything went wrong at every single point, to be honest,” Russell said. “If you play it safe, you’ll come home with a safe result. It’s not really what we were going for.”