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SILVERSTONE, UK — July always marks the start of the Great British sporting summer, giving fans across the country lots of action to cheer for.
Across Wimbledon, Euro 2024, and even the Tour de France, there’s been plenty of home success to celebrate — and Formula One wouldn’t miss out on the fun.
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George Russell led Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris to a home 1-2-3 in qualifying for the British Grand Prix on Saturday at Silverstone in a session that, typically, was hit by a mix of sunshine and showers.
It’s the first time a trio of Brits has locked out the top three in qualifying at Silverstone, boosting the odds of the first home victory since Hamilton’s 2021 British GP.
It was a wild qualifying, and Max Verstappen could only muster fourth after a mistake in Q1 left him with floor damage. It was worse still for Red Bull teammate Sergio Pérez, who spun out and will start 19th on Sunday amid mounting pressure over his position at the team.
Here are all the main storylines to know for tomorrow’s British Grand Prix.
Can Russell and Hamilton give Mercedes home success?
A big slice of luck was involved with Russell ending Mercedes’ 18-month win drought in Austria last weekend, capitalizing on the clash between Verstappen and Norris at the front. But Silverstone proved that Mercedes’ pace is for real.
The team has mistaken several missteps for breakthroughs with its car concept since the start of this ruleset in 2022. Now, it finally seems to be in a place to contend for poles and wins again, something Russell and Hamilton displayed in full on Saturday at Silverstone.
Russell was quickest in the first and second runs of Q3, saying his car “really came alive in quali” as he hooked things up around the high-speed Silverstone track. “We’re riding this wave at the moment, absolutely buzzing,” Russell said. “But eyes on tomorrow. We’ve got a race to win.”
Hamilton, who fell 0.171 seconds shy of Russell’s pole time, said he’d been a little more cautious in his car’s setup to favor the race and remained wary of the inevitable threat McLaren and Red Bull would pose at the front.
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“We’ll definitely take it today, but these guys, Red Bull, particularly Max, and the McLarens, are very, very, very fast,” Hamilton said. “You saw in the last race, they were quite a bit ahead of us. So I’m hoping that tomorrow, with the conditions, we can hold our own.”
It is true that Mercedes’ one-lap pace hasn’t always translated to grands prix this year, even during its recent step forward. But from the front row, Russell and Hamilton have everything in their favor to try and make the win happen.
Norris seeks redemption after Austria
Of the three Brits at the head of the field, Norris is the one whose presence is least surprising. McLaren’s car has developed into a strong all-rounder, allowing him to excel at almost every track.
His late-race incident with Max Verstappen in Austria was a big talking point heading into the weekend. They’ll start side-by-side again on Sunday, albeit in third and fourth. Norris had a scruffy final lap in Q3 before running wide out of Turn 14, prompting him to abandon his final lap and sit in the pits as Mercedes locked out the front row.
There’s no doubt the McLaren is going to be quick tomorrow. Last year, Silverstone was the true start of its upswing in performance, with Norris going wheel-to-wheel against Verstappen in the opening stages and forcing his way into the lead. Now, he not only has the Red Bull to contend against but two silver cars as well.
“I’m sure Max is going to be racing us tomorrow,” Norris said. “But I’ve still got two other guys I’ve got to worry about. So I don’t care just about Red Bull.”
It’s an extra challenge for Norris and McLaren, but they have proven time and again this year that they will embrace it. Mercedes has the front row, but the momentum so far this year rests with the papaya cars.
🥇 Russell
🥈 Hamilton
🥉 NorrisIt's the first time there's been a British 1-2-3 on the starting grid at Silverstone 😮#F1 #BritishGP pic.twitter.com/5h2qhcXW2h
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 6, 2024
Why qualifying didn’t show Verstappen’s true pace
Fourth place on the grid and nearly four-tenths off pole isn’t familiar ground for Verstappen. But he felt fortunate to have even qualified in the top 10th at Silverstone on Saturday.
A mistake in Q1, running wide at Copse during a late rain shower, sent Verstappen through the gravel and left his floor significantly damaged. Verstappen claimed it initially cost him 100 points of downforce — “which is a lot!” — before his Red Bull team did what it could to repair it by shaving off bits hanging off and patching up some holes.
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“The team did a great job trying to recover some of the bits and tried (to) optimize the balance front to rear,” Verstappen explained. “But yeah, that basically ruined our qualifying. I was happy to be in Q3 already with the damage that we had. And to be P4 is probably a bit of a positive surprise.”
Verstappen is still very much in the mix at the front and would surely have been in contention for pole with an undamaged car. We’ve not seen the true potential of the Red Bull this weekend due to the strange weather on Friday and the interrupted running on Saturday. His job, in front of the British crowd, is to play the role of home party pooper.
“Now we are probably a bit more on the attack instead of starting first or second, but that’s fine,” Verstappen said. “The people around me, we’re all very even on pace, I guess. Naturally, I do think McLaren is always very quick in the race and looking after their tires. But I hope we can be in that mix and make it difficult.”
Pressure mounts for Pérez after latest Q1 knockout
Pérez made another mistake during qualifying, beaching his RB20 at Copse and causing Q1 to be red-flagged while more rain loomed.
“It seemed to be quite wet on the entry, and on the white line, it was quite slippery. Unfortunately, I was the first one probably to go through on cold tires, slick tires, so everything combined was the result,” Pérez said. “I think people probably went out 20 minutes after, and still it was a tricky corner, but anyway, I put my hand up because I f—ed up today, and tomorrow is a new day.”
Pérez says he doesn’t feel pressure at this moment. But when looking at his performance across the season and the dynamic driver market, the timing of this moment resonates.
GO DEEPER
Sergio Pérez tests Red Bull's faith with mistakes, McLaren on the rise
As teams like McLaren start catching up with Red Bull, the team needs both drivers to perform consistently at the front. Verstappen continues to raise the bar, but Pérez’s performance has begun slipping again. He went from securing three second-place finishes in the opening four races to not finishing higher than seventh in the last five grands prix. Red Bull team boss Christian Horner recently told Sky Sports, “We need him up there supporting Max because there’s two McLarens, two Ferraris, two Mercedes, we desperately need there to be two Red Bulls.”
And for Sunday’s race, he’s set to line up P19.
Ferrari chases answers on a miserable weekend
The dejected “pfft” from Charles Leclerc in response to the first question about his Q2 exit at Silverstone said it all. Yes, conditions were difficult, and it had been a tricky session to get completely right. But that wasn’t why he’d ended up 11th. “We are just struggling a lot at the moment,” Leclerc said.
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Since Leclerc’s victory in Monaco, Ferrari hasn’t looked like a team capable of challenging Red Bull like McLaren and Mercedes have in recent weeks. The team’s latest set of updates became a step back rather than a step forward, leading to a return of the old bouncing problem that was long thought cured.
Ferrari has made more evaluations across the British GP weekend, prompting both Leclerc and Sainz to return to the Imola-spec car – Ferrari won the next race in Monaco – ahead of Saturday’s running to make the car more consistent.
Leclerc admitted the team was “struggling to optimize” what performance the car did have as it made some adjustments to try and understand where things had gone wrong. “It will help us long term, what we’ve done yesterday,” Leclerc said. “However, I feel like we’re paying a little bit the price today of it.”
Teammate Carlos Sainz didn’t pay quite as high a price as Leclerc, making it through to Q3 and ending up seventh. He said it was “no surprise” the team was struggling so much at Silverstone given it is the “king of the high speed” tracks, making for a bleak outlook going into Sunday.
For Ferrari, the grand prix will be about damage limitation from a results perspective. The bigger benefits will come from learning what went wrong with the new updates and how it might get into a better window for the upcoming Hungary/Belgium double-header.
GO DEEPER
Silverstone track breakdown: The track that makes F1 drivers feel like fighter jet pilots
Top photo of Lewis Hamilton, George Russell and Charles Leclerc: Bryn Lennon/Formula 1 via Getty Images, Jayce Illman/Getty Images