Formula One British Grand Prix 2024 - Silverstone

Report by Jak Walker

19 July 2024

It’s been said that Silverstone has its own microclimate when the Formula One paddock arrives at the Northamptonshire circuit every year. And this year proved just that with mixed conditions all weekend spicing things up in every session keeping the drivers on their toes (and fans too) with what the weather was doing. 

Arguably one of the biggest races of the year here at Silverstone on the Formula One Calendar and it never disappoints with the on-track action. This year was probably one of the best races not only at Silverstone but one we’ve had for a while, as no one was really sure who was going to take the chequered flag first until the flag was waved. 

Rookies take to the track

FP1 saw a huge rookie outing for a lot of teams, which not only gave their junior drivers a chance to develop their skills ready for Formula One but also allowed teams to comply with the regulation. Teams have to run one junior driver in each car. Each team must run a rookie driver, defined as a racer with two or less grands prix of experience for two FP1 sessions by the end of the season.

Red Bull rookie Isack Hadjar took over Sergio Perez’s car for the session, Alpine reserve Jack Doohan piloted Pierre Gasly’s car. Haas had their newly announced 2025 driver Oliver Bearman, who took over from Kevin Magnussen. For Williams their academy driver Franco Colapinto got some laps under his belt in Logan Sargents car.

Mercedes Take a 1-2 In Qualifying

The biggest story to come out of qualifying was that it was a British lockout with Russell, Hamilton and Norris occupying a 1-2-3 respectively making it a perfect session for the British fans in attendance. The grid is finally starting to catch up to Red Bull and its star driver Max Verstappen, as he only managed to put his Red Bull into fourth with the second McLaren of Oscar Piastri just behind. 

The Grand Prix

Come race day, the British grand prix never fails to deliver an outstanding race and is one of the highlights of the year for the entire grid, you can always rely on the Northamptonshire circuit to give us a good race. But there was drama before the lights even went out as Alpine’s Pierre Gasly dived for the pitlane at the end of the formation lap. Retiring his car due to mechanical failure, he had new engine components in his car that weekend as well which also had given the team a grid penalty. 

Even though we didn’t get the first lap overtake of Lando on Max last year between the two frontrunners, we still had an engaging battle between the top four who were all in contention of taking the race win. The two Mercedes kept it clean throughout the first few laps not really challenging each other and focussed on pulling away from the rest of the pack behind to eliminate the threat of Norris and Verstappen. However, there was a slight glimpse that this was just going to be another easy victory for Verstappen as he managed to get his car straight into third after overtaking Norris on the first few turns.

Later on however, cracks started to show on Verstappen as not only Norris but his teammate Piastri swooped past him at around lap 15 to take third and fourth respectively. The whole Silverstone circuit erupted in applause when home favourite Lewis Hamilton went past his teammate at Stowe a couple of laps later.

The rain then made its appearance and caused a whole rift of excitement which led to both Mercedes cars going off at Abbey. This gave Norris the perfect opportunity to take second from Russell and close in on Hamilton which he later passed at the very same corner. A fantastic and brave overtake on a corner which you don’t normally see any passing on, then at around lap 27 it was a McLaren 1-2 with Oscar Piastri getting through as well. 

Then the worst came when all of a sudden one of the home heroes and pole sitter for this weekend George Russell was told to retire his car in the pits. The race had only gone half distance, we later discovered it was due to a water pump issue on the car. This ended Russell’s attempt to get on the podium at his home race for another year once again. 

After the field pitted for intermediates to cope with the damp track, the track was slowly drying and it was Hamilton that pitted again on lap 39 for softs and the fact that Norris didn’t ruined the young McLaren driver’s chance of reaching the top step at his home race. This led to Hamilton ultimately undercutting Lando by pitting earlier for faster tyres, therefore having a stronger pace than his fellow Brit as Lewis regained the lead of the race from Lando as he was leaving the pits. 

Lewis Hamilton then had a clear route to victory but it wasn’t all plain sailing as Verstappen was quickly closing in on Lando and Lewis. His surprisingly quicker pace on the hard tyres looked to be an advantage, whereas both Lewis and Lando should have been quicker on the softs.

Max Verstappen however, had to settle for second after managing to take the position from Lando. The crowd erupted as the chequered flag dropped on the British Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton took his last British F1 victory at Mercedes (before moving to Ferrari next year) and his first win since the penultimate race of 2021.