2023-07-09 15:39:53
Max Verstappen celebrated a Red Bull record victory in Formula 1 at the British Grand Prix in Silverstone. The Dutchman won on Sunday despite a bad start ahead of the two Brits Lando Norris in a McLaren and Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton. Verstappen thus secured the eleventh win in a row for the Austro racing team, with Red Bull Racing equalizing McLaren’s 35-year-old record from the 1988 season.
“Eleven in a row, that’s really crazy,” said Verstappen on the pit radio. Red Bull kept the clean sheet in the tenth race of the season, Verstappen triumphed for the eighth time and celebrated his 43rd victory. Verstappen extended his championship lead to 99 points over teammate Sergio Perez, who finished sixth. Rookie Oscar Piastri was a sensational fourth, giving the two McLaren drivers more points than in the previous nine races combined.
The spectators at Silverstone already saw the first highlight on the warm-up lap. Because for the upcoming Formula 1 Hollywood film with Brad Pitt in the lead role, two cars should also contest the lap at the start. One car is said to have started rolling, but the second had to be pushed away by Hollywood mechanics. The basis for the car is a model from Formula 2, the car of the fictitious APXGP team is painted in black and gold.
In the real sports world, Verstappen got off to a weak start, Briton Norris took the lead after the first corner, enthusiastically cheered on by the home fans. A total of 480,000 fans attended the 75th anniversary at Silverstone at the weekend – a record. Verstappen initially had to fend off some attacks from rookie Oscar Piastri, who had started the race from third place. Norris turned the first lead laps of a McLaren in Formula 1 in eleven years, the pleasure lasted five turns. Then the Red Bull dominator regained the top position on the high-speed track.
The two McLaren drivers kept up well with Verstappen, while behind them Leclerc had to defend himself against Russell in the Mercedes. After the first pit stops and after 31 of 52 laps, Russell overtook the Ferrari driver. Two laps later, Haas driver Kevin Magnussen’s engine burst into flames, and a safety car made things exciting again. While McLaren put on the harder tires with Norris, Verstappen and Hamilton put on the softest set.
The 38-year-old record world champion Hamilton and Norris (23) fought an exciting duel of generations with the better end for the youth. The dark clouds in the area probably caused the strategists’ hearts to pound, but the rain stayed away from the racetrack. A little further back, Perez started a catch-up race from 15th on the grid. The Mexican missed out on the top ten for the fifth time in a row in qualifying and slowly worked his way through the field.
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