Tears in Silverstone for Hamilton’s Win
Round 12 of F1 2024 in the United Kingdom: What Happened?
An ironic and not serious at all summary of the race.
How does it feel to be a spoiled fan? It’s indescribable, let’s say it out loud. It’s what we’ve been asking for a long time and somehow, it’s happening. F1 is back: real Formula 1 has regained strength.
If the show we are witnessing raises the stakes from race to race, I don’t know what we should honestly expect anymore. Silverstone concludes this short inter-European relay with one of the best races of the last ten years. I didn’t say it too loudly: I really mean it.
Could it have been the rain? It can be, certainly. Could it have been the atmosphere of the circuit, which is one of the pillars of this sport as well as the first F1 GP in history? It definitely played a role.
For a while now I have believed that the British and Italians are the people most fond of this sport for obvious sporting and historical reasons. Imagine how they must have felt on Sunday afternoon, after witnessing the victory of their unforgotten home king of the sport.
Sir Lewis Hamilton — let’s pronounce these words carefully — won the ’24 British GP after two and a half years of an ordeal.
The hardest period of his entire career, a big question mark in the background, the uncertainty about the future and therefore about his own abilities: “Have I finished racing? Is everything already written? Is my story over?”
A championship crowded with younger talents is not the best environment to work in if you have reached “retirement” age, as in any workplace. There is maturity, the aura of a wise old “shaman” who is respected but who ultimately is not taken seriously by almost anyone anymore.
But no. Still we rise: Hamilton proved all this wrong and wrote history with a record of 9 victories in a single GP.
But would we have predicted this race finale? Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect. I just knew I was going to have a blast.
The start was the first question mark. George Russell starts from the pole very well and immediately gets ahead of his teammate. Behind him, however, there is what I have called the “waltz of positions”: Hamilton, Norris, Verstappen, and Piastri — all of them fighting for P2.
Max passes Lando on the outside with a great overtaking, while Leclerc from 11th finds himself 8th. Meanwhile, the moody English sky shows mixed signals: in one piece you can see the sunlight, in another, there is a Mackerel Sky, in another one it’s grey.
But above all, we can glimpse a cloud of rain pouring down in the distance on the green hills of the East Midlands. Drivers are warned of the imminent arrival of water.
However, almost all positions are frozen: a few overtaking, as if nobody wants to push too much. Note: the two Williams in P12 and P13 and Perez in sixteenth who fails to pass the Haas.
On lap 13 Charles finally manages to pass Stroll to take P7. But if there is anyone who unexpectedly has problems, it is Max Verstappen: he moves away from Hamilton and is overtaken by Lando (I expected them both to throw themselves out at Copse eheheh).
The next lap the Dutch is eaten by Piastri too. Seeing him in such difficulty was something we hadn’t seen for at least 3 years if not more. I won’t say what I said at that moment because I’m a sporty person… hihihi
Meanwhile, in the stands the public begins to open umbrellas and raincoats: the water has come. George is starting to have difficulties, which is strange because in the wet he has proven to be one of the best in the past.
Hamilton gets very close to him and takes P1 on Hangar Straight.
But here’s the first of many twists: on lap 19, both of them go out at Abbey (turn 1). Then we don’t understand anything anymore.
It’s a “waltz of positions” again: Lando takes P2 from George, then also takes the lead from Lewis with a wonderful overtaking in the wet. Oscar overtakes George by staying on his hips for a while.
Then not happy, the Australian also makes an aggressive overtaking over Hamilton and suddenly we have a 1–2 McLaren.
It seemed like we were witnessing a GP from another era — I don’t know, maybe the 70s or 80s — with these sudden changes in position.
Leclerc and some other drivers are called to pit well in advance to put on the intermediates. Still, this compound doesn’t work: they lose a lot of ground because it isn’t wet enough yet and in the meantime the tyre becomes almost slick, erasing all its lug.
It was a gamble on the part of the teams who tried this pit stop but we know it very well: with the rain, it’s all a lottery, even now that we are hyper-technological and the best radars and predictive algorithms know precisely which tyre to put in which lap and in which conditions.
In hindsight, however, let’s say it frankly: it was stupid.
Only about ten laps later, the conditions become optimal for this change: as a matter of fact, everyone goes to pit around laps 27 and 28 to take the intermediates.
The two Mercedes both pit, while McLaren keeps out Piastri who was not only having an impressive pace but was also about to catch Norris.
In this way, his race is effectively sc****d up. He goes to pit a lap later, but it’s too late.
This is the first very serious mistake in McLaren’s strategy: a mistake that is difficult to forgive. What was the point of “diversifying” if the track is wet for everyone? It wasn’t drier for Piastri, for sure.
However, this wet situation only lasts a few laps. Max is third but in serious difficulty due to severe tyre deg.
The real twist is Russell who is withdrawn due to a “water issue”. You could see the bitterness and disappointment in his icy eyes when they filmed him raising his visor and getting out of the car.
Lando is still leading the race, but he has to look in the rearviews because Lewis’ arrival is imminent. The sun appears timidly on the track but the teams still don’t know whether to switch to dry tyres.
As he began to gain tenths again, Max is called to pit together with Hamilton on lap 39. The Dutchman switches to hards. The British 7 instead on softs. The choice of the first will be the best one in terms of rhythm and pace, as we will see at the end. But it won’t be enough.
McLaren calls first Piastri who is now fifth and then Norris. They make two big mistakes, both Lando and the team. First of all, they make a 4.5-second long pit stop which inevitably compromises Lando’s race, who had arrived too far in his pit section.
But above all, the team chose the wrong tyre itself. Despite having a set of new mediums available, which neither Mercedes nor Red Bull had, McLaren chose the softs. Lando can do little: as soon as he exits the pitlane he is overtaken by Lewis.
The 24-year-old from Bristol is overtaken again by Max, while his Australian teammate sets impressive paces on the mediums.
Now the games are over. Like Squid Game, in the end, there are only two survivors left: Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen.
In the final laps, it’s all once again heart-pounding. Max really seems on the verge of being able to catch Lewis, with a gap of three seconds which however is reduced “only” to 2 on the penultimate lap.
It’s redundant and banal to say it, but this is where the whole experience of a driver who hadn’t won since December 5, 2021, came to light, while a pandemic brought the world to its knees and an F1 world championship was being played until the last minute.
My tears started to pour down as soon as I heard his team radio where we heard his broken feeble voice. I cried when I saw George come and caress him and shakes his hand to congratulate him: the first of his team to arrive there. I cried when he hugged his father with his helmet on.
But apart from the tears, here is a fact that we carry after this GP. It was a race where men emerged over the machines. Even on a strategic level, the influence of often wrong choices and decisions, as in McLaren or Ferrari, has had far more serious consequences than the mechanics themselves.
The man over technique. Or perhaps simply, fate over algebra.
Of course, Mercedes has emerged from the ashes like a triumphant Phoenix, almost more so than McLaren did mid-season last year. Here the technique, i.e. the updates, certainly reigned supreme.
If Ferrari made such a scary and sad downgrade, it is for technical reasons: the upgrades did not work at all, as Sainz himself underlined in free practice. Leclerc is not calm and his poor performances speak for themselves.
But who is driving these cars? These 20 guys here. These 20 guys who obsess us and who will keep us glued to the screen also for the next row of European races which starts on the 21st in Budapest. We can only say: let’s hope that Sunday arrives soon.
For now, let’s cry together again for this moment.
