New 2022 car, new sprint format, controversial crash: Race weekend reviewed

An eventful and dramatic Silverstone weekend
Jul 19, 2021
PHOTO: AP

SILVERSTONE: the track where it all began for the FIA Formula 1 World Championship back in 1950. It felt right, then, that this place would then host the inaugural F1 Sprint Qualifying as part of a shakeup in the race weekend format.

It’s a change that has gotten mixed reviews from everyone in the paddock. But it’s only the first piece of news in an F1 Silverstone race weekend that saw a new car reveal and a very controversial collision.

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Coming home or going Dutch?

The UEFA EURO 2020 championship might not have gone England’s way last week, but with the British GP, fans were hopeful that they could be redeemed by hometown heroes Lando Norris, George Russell, and 7-time-world champion Lewis Hamilton.

“It feels great to be back and you get the feeling with the fans that will be here, I wanna give everyone the best weekend and I wanna give them the best result that we can,” said Hamilton during a media interview.

That feeling must have been something special when you’re competing in front of a home crowd, as COVID-19 has deprived the sport of its usual spectators in the past year. However, Silverstone’s the first circuit to allow a full capacity crowd, and 140,000 fans showed up — many of them likely looking forward to the ongoing championship battle between Mercedes and Red Bull.

The rivalry between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton has gotten heated every single race weekend. With Red Bull dominating the last five races, a lot favored Dutchman Verstappen to steal the thunder from the Brits and take home the Silverstone win. But it was hard to count Hamilton out, as he’s won on this track multiple times ⏤ a feat that his rival has yet to replicate.

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2022 car reveal during F1 Silverstone weekend

F1 also took the time this weekend to unveil the look of the 2022 car. It’s a car that is meant to promote better and closer racing as several changes were made to impact the downforce loss, increase safety, and make use of a more sustainable “E10” fuel.

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All of these would come alongside the new regulations that are set to be introduced in the coming year. We are yet to find out if these changes would really close the gap between the frontrunners and backmarkers, but we’re all keeping our fingers crossed that these would bring us more exciting wheel-to-wheel battles.

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    Should Sunday’s grid be determined by the Sprint results? Everyone’s divided

    As we all know, the British GP gave us a glimpse of what a race weekend would look like with the Sprint Qualifying involved.

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    Vettel has always been vocal about his stance on this race addition. While it seemed as though he was already warming up to the idea, he proceeded to criticize the fact that Sunday’s pole position would be determined by the Sprint results. The 2016 champ, Nico Rosberg, also agreed. Both see it as something that would ruin F1’s quali stats and history.

    Personally, I would have to agree with them on this matter. Don’t get me wrong. I believe that the sprint race is actually a good idea. However, I feel that it should be its own entity — a stand-alone pre-race event — instead of connecting it as a qualifying determinant.

    It was really interesting, though, to see how it all panned out, with drivers feeling the extra pressure. We ultimately saw Verstappen dominate the 17 laps as soon as the lights went out to cruised towards the title of “First F1 Sprint Winner.” Verstappen was then treated to an old-school celebration with the comeback of the winner’s wreath. He proudly wore this as he was joined by the other top three finishers, Hamilton and teammate Valtteri Bottas, in a drivers’ parade.

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    The rivalry in full heat

    Commentators and fans have all seen this coming, and it was only a matter of time before the pressure would come to wreak havoc on the title contenders.

    A scene from F1 Silverstone race weekend

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    Racing fans all over the world probably got up from their seats and let out a yelp as the championship leader, Verstappen, crashed out of the race after coming in contact with Hamilton. He ended up crashing into the copse barriers with a 51-G impact, which meant he had to go to a nearby hospital for extra checks.

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    Red Bull was certainly not happy about this, as their other driver, Sergio Perez, was also outside of the points at the back of the pack. This came after a costly spin during Saturday’s sprint that saw him go from P5 to P20.

    The race had to be red flagged, and Hamilton was handed a 10-second penalty which he served during his pitstop. When the session resumed, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was comfortably ensconced in the lead — at least until the last 2 laps, where Hamilton was able to overtake for an eight British Grand Prix win. Celebrations erupted all over the grandstands at Silverstone, but not everyone was happy.

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    Everyone at Red Bull believed that Hamilton should have faced a bigger consequence. as the collision with Verstappen could have led to a much worse outcome if not for the safety features of the modern cars.

    As heard on team principal Christian Horner’s radio message to race director Michael Masi: “Every driver who’s driven at this circuit knows you don’t stick a wheel up the inside at Copse… That was an enormous accident and it was 100% Max’s corner, so as far as I’m concerned. Full blame lays on Hamilton, who should never have been in that position. Thank God he’s walked unscathed. I hope you’re going to deal with it appropriately.”

    Mercedes’ team boss Toto Wolff thinks otherwise, however, as he believes this to be a racing incident with both drivers sharing the blame.

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    Everyone’s also divided on this, although it’s very much visible on the comments section of F1’s social media accounts that fans are enraged.

    While I for one am still on the fence on who’s really responsible for the incident, I’m just glad that everyone’s safe and that there were no further collisions in the race. I do believe, however, that this incident would be a crucial one to look back at when we review the season and could be an important turning point in the championship battle.

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    In the midfield, we saw solid results for McLaren which extended their lead over Ferrari. The 4-5 finish saw Norris going up to third in the driver standings and his teammate Daniel Ricciardo achieving his best finish so far for the papaya team.

    With that, here’s how the other drivers fared within the top 10:

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    Verstappen came to Silverstone with a 33-point advantage, but he would now be leaving with just an 8-point lead. Meanwhile, his team only has a 4 point gap between them and rival Mercedes.

    With around 2 weeks before the next one, all of the teams would have to regroup and learn from this interesting race. Red Bull would surely be hungry for redemption and likewise, Mercedes would definitely want to close up that gap and regain the championship lead.

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    Stay tuned for round 11 happening on the weekend of July 30-August 1 as the 2021 Formula 1 World Championship resumes in Hungary.

    Get more of the latest sports news & updates on SPIN.ph

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    PHOTO: AP
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