Silverstone 2024; an English-style race
- pitwallstories
- Jul 25, 2024
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 26, 2024
A legendary comeback: Hamilton adds another Silverstone title to his legacy
The Silverstone circuit, located in cold and gloomy England, near the small Northamptonshire villages of Silverstone and Whittlebury, is one of the most historic circuits in the world of motorsport.
The first GP was held there in the distant year of 1948, when the Royal Automobile Club (RAC) decided to transform this old airfield used by the RAF during WWII, into an autodrome, taking advantage of the long straights that were used as take off and landing strips. The very first inaugural race was won by the Italian Luigi Villoresi with a Maserati 4CLT/48, thus baptising that place and giving it a new life at the service of motorsport enthusiasts.
Now, it’s been a very long time since that 1948 Grand Prix but the emotions gifted to us on this circuit are still the same, pure and passionate. Shocking and sometimes disappointing.
The definition of ‘British qualifying’
After an extremely surprising qualifying Saturday, we witnessed George Russell getting pole position, ahead of his teammate Lewis Hamilton and compatriot Lando Norris, Sunday’s race seemed all ready to surprise everyone.
Even for those in the middle, things seemed to have taken a different turn compared to the start of the season. Indeed, Saturday recorded a fantastic Nico Hulkenberg in the top ten, as did both the Aston Martins who had not qualified further than Q2 in a long time.
Missing from Q3 was, once again, Charles Leclerc who, with a Ferrari that seems to be in great difficulty, managed to finish only eleventh, knocked out by the canadian driver Lance Stroll. His teammate Carlos Sainz, who finished in seventh position, also complained about problems in race pace and having had difficulties managing the fast corners, which can only lead to bad results in Silverstone.
An incredible Sunday
Leaving aside Alpine driver Pierre Gasly who, after a forgettable qualifying, had to retire the car at the end of the formation lap, Sunday's start was good for George Russell. He hopefully keeps first place over his teammate while Max Verstappen goes from fourth to third, overtaking Lando Norris. A normal and clean start for the rest of the grid, with Charles Leclerc rising to eighth position while the king of qualifying Nico Hulkenberg drops to ninth position.
From lap six the drivers are told to expect rain towards lap 16, an awareness they have every time they drive on the English track. An awareness that, however, seems to be taken too seriously by Scuderia Ferrari which called the driver of car number 16 to the pits earlier than expected, for intermediate tyres on a track that was mostly still dry. A choice which, as we know, will cost the Monegasque driver a lot. He will end up outside the points zone after losing countless positions after the first big bout of rain.
One of the home heroes, Lando Norris, never misses an opportunity to put on a show, overtaking super Max Verstappen and thus regaining second position, ready to go after the hungry Lewis Hamilton. And it is here that the Dutch driver's RedBull seems to falter in performance, after the overtaking received by the other McLaren driver, Oscar Piastri, firmly locked in fourth position behind his teammate.
But the race is still long and the rain is only now arriving.
A sequence of incredible laps followed the arrival of the rain with Lando Norris now incredibly leading the race, joined by Oscar Piastri, giving McLaren a chance of a one-two on their home soil. Happiness and hope, feelings far away felt from the Italian Scuderia which sees its drivers in great difficulty; Charles Leclerc has now dropped to sixteenth position while Carlos Sainz enters the pit for a sudden tyre change, copied from the leading world champion, Max Verstappen.
Later on a twist that shakes the English public when poleman George Russell is called into the garage on lap 34 to retire his car due to a suspected water system problem. Two sides of the same coin: the joy of Saturday meeting the disappointment and frustration of Sunday, sadly in front of the home crowd. A crowd that remains silent also after McLaren's choice to leave Norris out of the pits, while Hamilton and Verstappen are called in. Without a doubt it was the strategic choice that cost the twenty-four year old English driver the victory in today's race.
And so finally, on lap thirty-nine, Lewis Hamilton becomes the new leader of the race but has Max Verstappen less than five seconds behind him, who narrows that gap further and further after overtaking Norris. There are only five laps left in the race but the atmosphere on the track seems to tell us that anything can still happen as Verstappen gets frighteningly close to Hamilton.
Just one lap is what separates Lewis Hamilton from victory here, at Silverstone, in his home. And so it is, after 52 laps of great effort and many surprises, that Sir Lewis Hamilton wins the 2024 Silverstone Grand Prix. The crowd goes crazy, he cries. He does not respond to his race engineer's team radio, who shouts the result he has just achieved in his ears.
For him it is more than a goal. It's a child's dream. A child who, after having got out of the car parked in front of the number 1, lets himself go into the arms of his father Anthony. It is the dream of any driver to win at home, in front of a crowd that knows him and is his friend. Lewis Hamilton waves the Union Jack, while he raises the trophy in the air and kisses it, looking down at his team for the last time. Starting from next year his team will be of another color. But Lewis doesn't care about this, because now he still drives for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team and the present is the only moment he wants to live in.
Written by Fran
