Written by Hafiz Akbar
After an excitingly tight qualifying yesterday, it was Lewis Hamilton who would line up first for the inaugural Formula One Sprint. His title rival, Max Verstappen started second alongside the 7-time world champion.
The field mostly opted to run a medium tyre no-stop strategy because of the shorter race distance, with only Bottas, Räikönnen, Ocon, and Alonso starting with soft tyres.
And after two weeks of no Formula 1 excitement, its five lights out! Verstappen had an excellent start, leaving Hamilton in the dust. Alonso and Räikönnen had the best starts out of all the field, gaining six and four places respectively. On the other hand, Sainz was tapped by Russell, sending him into the run-off and sending him nine places down the order. This incident will be investigated after the session has drawn into a close.
The fight between Verstappen and Hamilton was very much the highlight of the sprint as the title rivals fought for pole position for the main race tomorrow. Putting up a good fight, Hamilton was eventually outpaced by the speedy Verstappen, who’s running a high downforce setup compared to Hamilton’s low drag setup. Both drivers also reported high amounts of blistering, with Verstappen even being told to stay off the kerbs on both sides!
Another highlight of the race was Sergio Perez running off the exit of Becketts after getting caught in the turbulent air and spinning out of control. The Mexican was eventually told to retire the car by his engineer.
Finally, after an exciting 17 laps around the legendary Silverstone circuit, it was Max Verstappen who took the first ever win of a Formula 1 sprint race, placing him on pole for tomorrow’s race. Lewis Hamilton finished the race in second, with Valtteri Bottas right behind him. George Russell, in his Williams, will start from ninth on the grid. Although not the highest in his career as a Williams driver, it’s still a marvellous result indeed – in front of his home crowd as well.
We’ll meet again tomorrow for the 2021 British Grand Prix. Will we see more of the same exciting overtaking action of today? Be sure not to miss the action tomorrow!
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