After the race in Austria last week, this weekend the Formula 1 circus headed to Silverstone for the British Grand Prix and, once again, F1 did not disappoint when it came to entertainment. Or maybe it did, because what happened this weekend will make Silverstone 2026 go down as a disgrace.
What happened, Goguma? Why are you so angry?
Basically, it was another FIA mistake. The FIA is the body that governs the sport and makes decisions about penalties and about when the Safety Car needs to come out. When there is a heavy crash, one of the options to neutralize the race is to deploy the Safety Car. During the Safety Car period, the race is neutralized and all the cars line up behind it in order. In other words, the leader hooks up behind the Safety Car and everyone follows, including the lapped cars.
For a few years now, the rule has been that before the race is restarted, lapped cars can unlap themselves by passing the Safety Car. That way, when the race resumes, the cars fighting for position are all packed together. The key thing is that they need to have one lap of margin after the order is given. Keep that in mind.
Too much text, Goguma. What happened?
Alright, let’s get to it. At the end of the race, Verstappen had a serious crash, so the Safety Car came out. When the order was given for the lapped cars to unlap themselves, there were less than two laps left. It was by a ridiculous margin of 3 seconds, but that was enough to prevent any proper racing at the end. A completely undeserved ending for a Grand Prix that had not been particularly special anyway.
That’s rough. So how did it end?
Leclerc surprised me. In the preview I said I was not expecting much from him, and he ended up winning the race. It is true that he benefited from Antonelli’s problems, but he did an excellent job. Russell was the big winner: he had been running well behind Antonelli the whole time, but the combination of Verstappen’s retirement, Antonelli’s issues, and Hamilton’s late pit stop while waiting for the restart benefited him massively. Ferrari really were not expecting the race to end under Safety Car.
And what about the championship leader, Antonelli?
He put in a good performance and stayed ahead of Russell throughout the weekend. However, with 11 laps to go, while he was in second place closing in on leader Leclerc, he reported problems over the radio. To fix it, he had to pit twice to repair the car: the first stop involved changing the front wing, which did not solve the issue. On the second stop they identified the problem and removed the broken part.
Even so, between the two pit stops, when the car was damaged, he exceeded track limits, which is why he was penalized. In short, reliability, or rather the lack of it, ruined his race and he ended up out of the points. Even so, he made a very strong impression on me.
So it was a pretty eventful race then. Any more controversy?
The end of the race brought more controversy and, in my view, more wrong decisions. This time Carlos Sainz was involved: they simply penalized him with a lap for pitting.
What are you saying, Goguma? That’s impossible.
It sounds strange when said like that, so let me explain what happened in more detail. When the race was neutralized by the Safety Car, the Williams team decided to pit Carlos. But at this circuit the pit lane has a peculiarity: the path through the pits is shorter than the track, so you effectively cut out some meters compared to the normal layout.
The automated software detected that he had overtaken the Safety Car, and for that reason he was penalized with a lap. A harsh penalty with no real sense, and although he was 12th, outside the points, and it changes nothing, it shows how absurd race control decisions can be at times.
Even if it changes nothing, it is still stupid, possibly one of the biggest nonsense calls I have seen in many years, even if it went almost unnoticed.
Anything else worth mentioning?
I was impressed by the performance of Racing Bulls and Audi, with the former finishing sixth and seventh, and the latter eighth and tenth. Very good work from Bortoleto with Audi: it is a new team and he is a rookie, well, he made his debut last year, and he is still doing very well.
On the negative side, a team like Aston Martin and the Williamses were disappointing: both ended up at the back and spent the whole race out of the points. We expected more, and they need to step it up.
How does the championship look after this race?
One good thing these last few races have brought is a tighter championship. Antonelli now leads Russell by just 25 points. My feeling is that Antonelli has been unlucky, perhaps like Russell in some earlier races, but I also get the sense that Antonelli is a step ahead.
Anyway, we will see the next race at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium.
What do you think? Did you enjoy the race? Did you know about the Sainz situation? See you in Spa.
