The Grand Prix of Great Britain taught us that the race only ends with the checkered flag. Silverstone offered us some exciting last laps which brought fans close to a heart attack and a result that could've changed the situation of the championship.
The Silverstone circuit was a disused old airfield that then became a circuit. It celebrated its first Great Prize in 1950 and this year it coincided with the arrival to the midway point of the championship.
Hamilton got the pole in front of his fans and due to a penalty, his teammate, Bottas, started from ninth position. So, the second place on the starting grid was for Raikkonen and the third for Vettel. After the start was aborted by the abandonment of the Renault driven by Palmer, the Great Prize of Great Britain began. The start of the race already had incidents, at least for the middle of the grid.
The drivers of Toro Rosso had an accident that would result in Sainz out of the race in the first lap and with Kvyat penalized with a drive through penalty. Hamilton managed to keep first place, even though Raikkonen went after him very well. Vettel lost his third position to the hands of Verstappen, the key man of the race.
As we have said, Verstappen was the key man of the race. On lap eighteen he had a tough fight against Vettel. The German wanted to recover the position he had lost at the start. Not being able to do it on track, Vettel had to advance his pitstop to make an undercut to Red Bull.
The man in the Ferrrari managed to pass Verstappen with his pit stop. Then two laps before the end of the race, Raikkonen in his Ferrari lost second position because of a puncture on the front left tire, but there were no problems for the Italian team. On the next and last lap, it was Vettel who also had a puncture in his car, had an advanced stop so he could reach the end of the race.
The German, who had the fourth position, went back three positions because of the puncture. But the damage was seen in the lost points. Hamilton who finished the race first, managed to reduce the points difference to Vettel. Now the advantage of the Ferrari driver, current leader of the championship, is a single point.
But those who carried out an amazing race of overtaking were Bottas who started from ninth position and finished the race second, and Ricciardo who started from the penultimate position raced to the fifth, becoming the pilot of the day.
This Grand Prix also coincided with the debut of Frederic Vasseur as Team Principal of the Sauber team. The team had also made headlines by its agreement with Honda for the engines of the season 2018. Apparently, the poor performance of the Japanese brand with the team Mclaren this season, has made Sauber look for other options.
If this happened and Mclaren make the same decision, it would be very bad news for Honda and Formula 1. Honda would have to leave the competition because they wouldn’t have a team to supply their engines. Formula 1 would find it difficult to find new companies that would like to supply engines to teams and join the competition. Adding to that, Alonso could leave the team if he wants to be competitive in the race, leaving the situation for Honda to be quite bad. We will have to wait to see how the situation develops.