Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli and Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton finished first and second in Saturday’s sprint race at Silverstone
Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli and Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton finished first and second in Saturday’s sprint race at Silverstone
A record crowd of close to 180,000 people is expected to cram into Silverstone for the British Grand Prix on Sunday.
The remarkable attendance figure is a measure not only of Formula 1’s growth as a sport but also Silverstone’s determination to make as much as it can from it at a time of a particular purple patch for British drivers.
Many in that crowd will be hoping to will on one of the home favourites to victory, either nine-time winner Lewis Hamilton in his Ferrari, Mercedes’ title contender George Russell, who is yet to stand on the podium at his home race, or world champion Lando Norris, last year’s Silverstone winner, in his McLaren.
But the auguries for a home win on Sunday are not that good.
Although Hamilton and Russell start alongside each other on the second row of the grid, they are both behind their team-mates, with Mercedes’ championship leader Kimi Antonelli on pole and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc alongside him.
Hamilton, who has already lost one race to Antonelli this weekend in the form of Saturday’s sprint, does not sound optimistic, and that has nothing to do with the fact that he has been beaten in qualifying by Leclerc for the first time since Miami in early May.
“I’m not trying to be negative but the Mercedes is flat-out quicker,” Hamilton said. “If we are not able to get him on the first lap, he will just disappear into the distance.”
Not that that will stop Hamilton doing everything he can to extend his record of home wins to a remarkable 10 in his 20th race at Silverstone, a track where he has taken some of his greatest victories.
But Hamilton’s downbeat remarks are a reflection of not only qualifying but his experience in the sprint.
Hamilton took pole for Saturday’s shorter race, but although he led the first nine laps, Antonelli stalked him throughout, getting closer and closer until he blasted past him on the Hangar Straight – approaching the yellow-clad crowd in the ‘Lando stand’ at Stowe corner – as if the Ferrari was not there.
“Yesterday the car was so well balanced and was just getting quicker and quicker,” Hamilton said. “Today I was struggling under braking, the car was snapping or locking and it just wasn’t underneath me the same.
“Nothing will change between today and tomorrow. If he gets a clean run, he’ll be gone.”
Antonelli beats Leclerc & Hamilton to Silverstone pole
Antonelli passes Hamilton to win Silverstone sprint
For Antonelli, it was a first pole for three races, since he dominated the Monaco weekend at the beginning of June.
And, although he did not say it, also the perfect time to do it, at his team-mate’s home grand prix, just when Russell would be hoping to build on the momentum of his victory in Austria.
Antonelli has looked comfortable and composed all weekend, the pace apparently flowing effortlessly from him, even if he underlined that “it’s never easy”.
“This weekend is probably one of the most special along with Monza, because the crowd is amazing,” Antonelli said. “It’s incredible to see how much support there is for everyone. Of course, for Lewis in particular, but he’s the legend here, especially around Silverstone.
“But the crowd just gives you such a positive energy and to see people just waiting such a long time just to see you and to even maybe get an autograph or a picture, it’s just incredible. It’s such a positive energy that just makes the weekend so special as well.
“Also, it’s crazy that more than half a million people are coming this weekend.”
Russell was 0.370secs slower than Antonelli, but pointing out after qualifying that he was lacking straight-line speed compared with all the other Mercedes-engined cars.
McLaren ‘in a bit of a pickle’
McLaren’s Lando Norris will start Sunday’s race in sixth
McLaren’s Lando Norris will start Sunday’s race in sixth
One of those was Lando Norris. He acknowledged in a BBC Sport interview before the weekend that it was a bit frustrating to be reigning world champion but not in a position to defend his title, and nothing has changed at Silverstone. If anything, McLaren were struggling as much as at any race this season.
“We are just slow in the straight, slow in every corner, the car is not very efficient, we lack downforce and we have too much drag,” Norris said.
“We are in a bit of a pickle. It’s also a track that highlights both of them. This is a track where you need to be efficient.
“There are so many places where you rely on drag because you don’t have straight-line mode in certain places and this is where we lose a lot and also in every straight -there is a lot straights here – and also high speed, we are not very good in high speed, and we lose a lot in that and slow speed.
“This shows who has a good car and who hasn’t and it’s clear that we don’t.
“There’s no excuses. The car is not good enough and we know that.”
Team principal Andrea Stella said that in addition to the 0.3-0.4secs McLaren know they are behind on pace, their car loses more performance in gusty conditions than others.
Upgrades are coming for the Hungarian Grand Prix in two races’ time, and more after the summer break.
“As of Hungary, we will start to see a bit of an acceleration in our competitiveness,” Stella said.
McLaren have spoken of being about two or three months’ behind their rivals in terms of development, and Stella said this stems from last season, and was partly caused by the effort that had to be put into defending their lead in the championship.
“At the same time,” he said, “during the development, we adopted some directions from a conceptual point of view, that as we learn more about the 2026 regulation, we are redirecting.
“And this, like everything, especially from an aerodynamic point of view, is not something that you can get to converge in the space of a week. It normally takes one or two months. This couple of months is the delay that we have at the moment.
“This is the gap of performance that we are trying now to compensate through developments and upgrades that we bring during the season.”
McLaren are still struggling, Stella added, to get the best out of the Mercedes engine in terms of understanding how to operate it for optimum performance.
They are also out of step with the introduction of the latest Mercedes engines, which includes a reliability upgrade.
“We are now waiting to see if we can upgrade our specification and if this helps exploitation somehow,” Stella said. “It should be just a reliability upgrade, so I’m not sure that’s the case.
“But, definitely, there are some other factors that we need to keep discussing with (Mercedes), because when we look at the performance in the straights, even taking into account the fact that they may have less drag, there’s still some question marks.”
British Grand Prix
15:00 BST on Sunday
Live commentary on BBC Radio 5 Live; live text updates on BBC Sport website and app
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