Lando Norris briefly led the field at Silverstone. Granted, it only lasted about five laps before Verstappen powered by and stretched out his lead to eventually win by over three seconds, but it was a serious challenge to the dominant Red Bull driver.
And it came from a McLaren. The team has struggled to even break the top ten and score points this season, much less challenge for a win.
A major upgrade at Austria, though, earned Lando Norris a fourth place finish, and further refinements at Silverstone earned them second and third in qualifying.
“Of course, very happy that we won again,” said Verstappen. “I mean, eleven wins in a row for the team, I think that’s pretty incredible, but it wasn’t straightforward today.”
“At least it made it a bit more exciting,” he added: “I had to push for it. Lando didn’t really put up a fight, he was very nice to me, but then he actually came back again in the DRS, so he had a lot of pace today – he did very well today.”
Compared to Max’s more blasé approach to winning his sixth grand prix in a row, Lando was considerably more excited about his result.
“It is pretty insane!” Lando said. “None of this would be possible without the team, they did an amazing job.”
“I managed to hold off Lewis. I tried to hold on to Max for as long as possible,” he said. “I don’t care, P2 is all good.
“The whole in-lap I was trying to wave to everyone,” he added of the British home fans.
Norris’ teammate Oscar Piastri finished fourth as well after briefly running third, losing out to the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton in the closing laps after a late safety car brought the field together. George Russell in the other Mercedes finished fifth to round out the top five.
Hamilton was buoyed by the result.
“As a team, we know we are not that far away and we can keep pushing,” he said.
Mercedes currently sits second in the Constructors’ Championship, trailing Red Bull by 208 points.
The result is McLaren’s biggest points haul of the season by some margin, and moves them into fifth place in the standings ahead of Alpine. The team still trails fourth-place Ferrari by 98 points, though.
Sergio Perez could only manage to climb to sixth after starting sixteenth following a wet-weather qualifying session in which he wasn’t fast enough to advance out of the first round.
Though it was a strong drive, the poor result fuels rumors that Perez might not just be out of his seat at the end of the season but even as early as the midseason summer break.
Fernando Alonso, driving for Silverstone-based team Aston Martin, finished seventh. Williams driver Alex Albon is scored eighth, and the two Ferrari drivers of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz finished ninth and tenth respectively to round out the top ten.
| POS | DRIVER | TIME/RETIRED | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1:25:16.938 | 26 | |
| 2 | +3.798s | 18 | |
| 3 | +6.783s | 15 | |
| 4 | +7.776s | 12 | |
| 5 | +11.206s | 10 | |
| 6 | +12.882s | 8 | |
| 7 | +17.193s | 6 | |
| 8 | +17.878s | 4 | |
| 9 | +18.689s | 2 | |
| 10 | +19.448s | 1 | |
| 11 | +23.632s | 0 | |
| 12 | +25.830s | 0 | |
| 13 | +26.663s | 0 | |
| 14 | +27.483s | 0 | |
| 15 | +29.820s | 0 | |
| 16 | +31.225s | 0 | |
| 17 | +33.128s | 0 | |
| 18 | DNF | 0 | |
| NC | DNF | 0 | |
| NC | DNF | 0 |
* Provisional results. Note – Verstappen scored an additional point for setting the fastest lap of the race. Stroll received a five-second time penalty for causing a collision.
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