The 2024 season has proven to be a very nice change of pace compared to its predecessor. Last year was one of the most dominant years in the history of Formula 1, with Max Verstappen winning all but three races. This year is much different already, with six different winners in the first twelve races. But that means there is now so much going on at the front of the pack, that we hardly ever see what happens outside of the top 3. That was especially the case at the British Grand Prix.
Aston Martin was actually pretty good
Aston Martin has dropped off massively compared to last year. In 2023, they (well, Alonso) could regularly challenge for podiums. This year, they’re lucky to get within the top 10. In fact, they have come under increasing pressure to maintain that status as a top five team as Racing Bulls, Haas and now Alpine are frequently blocking them out of the points scoring positions.
It was great news for the team then that both Aston Martin drivers managed to score points at Silverstone. Stroll and Alonso both held a cool head and the team made all the right calls in the ever changing conditions, to bring them home in seventh and eighth respectively. It wasn't an amazing recovery race or a masterclass in defensive driving, it was just an unremarkable yet solid performance all around. The ten points Aston Martin brings home is actually almost as much as Ferrari earned in the race this weekend.
Nico Hulkenberg is once again doing better than he should be able to
Nico Hulkenberg managed to get his second P6 in a row. That means he got 16 points in the past two races. By comparison: Haas only got 12 points in the entirety of the 2023 season. The German is doing insanely well this year, and with Haas now getting their racepace problems under control, he has been able to convert his great qualifying into good race results. You want to really put his recent performance into perspective? In the last five events (so that’s four Grands Prix and one sprintrace), Hulkenberg has outscored Ricciardo, Stroll, Alonso, Perez and Leclerc. Haas will really miss him once he goes to Sauber next year.
Strong showing by Albon and Tsunoda
Drivers' standings after the race:
| Position | Driver | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | Stroll | 23 |
| 11 | Hulkenberg | 22 |
| 12 | Tsunoda | 20 |
| ... | ... | ... |
| 15 | Gasly | 6 |
| 16 | Magnussen | 5 |
| 17 | Albon | 4 |
| 18 | Ocon | 3 |
Finishing out the top ten were Alex Albon and Yuki Tsunoda, finishing ninth and tenth respectively. Both of them were in desperate need of some good points too, so this was more than welcome for both of them. Albon lost out on some places at the start and even incurred a little bit of damage in a touch-up with Alonso. Tsunoda meanwhile was close to him, having started in 13th and getting caught up in the melee at the start.
Both of them spent the rest of the race battling with their competitors - and each other - and managed to claw their way back into the top ten. They were helped slightly of course by Russell retiring and Leclerc getting some of Ferrari’s top shelf strategy work, but hey: a point is a point, no matter how you get them. It keeps Yuki in the fight with Hulkenberg and Stroll, while Albon jumped Ocon in the standings.
The incredible recovery of Oscar Piastri
After Piastri got screwed over by the McLaren strategy team, Piastri saw himself get back in sixth after pitting from first. Any chance of a victory was completely gone by then because he was more than an entire pitstop behind on his teammate. There was only the tiniest bit of consolation: Piastri didn’t have to save his tyres as much as the others ahead of him did.
And so he began pushing. The Aussie started closing the gap to Carlos Sainz by more than a second per lap, overtaking him soon enough and settling in for the final bit. Then he switched to the medium tyres, as Norris should have done, and continued to go on with his recovery. He finished the race only 5 seconds behind Norris and twelve seconds behind racewinner Lewis Hamilton. An incredible recovery by the McLaren driver.
Some credit for Logan Sargeant
We don’t see or hear much from Logan Sargeant this year, unless he’s in the wall or there’s a debate about who will replace him at Williams. But it has to be said: he did an amazing job at Silverstone. The American qualified in 12th - his best result all season - and finished the race in 11th. Just outside the points and only two spots away from his teammate. This result also means that Sargeant is now no longer last in the standings, as he overtakes Bottas with this and puts himself in P20. As mixed as his results in F1 have been, this one deserves a little bit of credit.
Perez makes it harder to justify his place at Red Bull again
The same can emphatically not be said about Sergio Perez. I have been skeptical about the Mexicans recent contract extension ever since it was announced, and Perez has done very little to take away those concerns. Remember how I said that Hulkenberg outscored Perez over the past five events? In the last six races plus the Austrian sprintrace, Perez scored a total of 15 points. Yeah, that’s less than Hulkenberg scored in the last two races. And qualifying isn’t much better: he has been outqualified by Sargeant three times already this year.
At Silverstone, Perez started from the pitlane and only managed to overtake the likes of Zhou and Bottas in the opening stages. The team realized too that there was absolutely no hope of Perez doing a recovery race, so they decided to have him be a test subject for the strategy instead. Perez went to the intermediate tyres early, which turned out to be the wrong call. He stayed on them for longer, which again turned out to be the wrong call. And even once he was on a similar compound again as the drivers around him, he still couldn’t get any closer or win any places, finishing in P17 and two laps behind his teammate. His only real contribution this weekend was testing what could be the right strategy call for Verstappen. Even team principal Christian Horner is now saying that this sort of result is not sustainable, and rumors are building again that Perez might still be kicked out of that seat soon despite his contract extension.