Key events
Five minutes to go, cue the montage. Britain is incredibly lucky to have this sporting and technological heritage.
Lewis Hamilton is wearing a yellow helmet he used to use when he was in karts.
It is a good season for British drivers, albeit with an Italian out front. In Barcelona the top three were British – Hamilton, Russell and Norris – and Arvid Lindblad is looking forward to his first home race. He just made it into the top 10 for the sprint race; here’s how they line up:
1 Lewis Hamilton Ferrari 1minute, 28.376sec
2 Kimi Antonelli Mercedes 1:28.387
3 Max Verstappen Red Bull 1:28.387
4 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1:28.703
5 George Russell Mercedes 1:28.733
6 Lando Norris McLaren 1:28.740
7 Oscar Piastri McLaren 1:28.772
8 Isack Hadjar Red Bull 1:28.835
9 Liam Lawson Racing Bulls 1:28.927
10 Arvid Lindblad Racing Bulls 1:29.367
11 Pierre Gasly Alpine 1:29.482
12 Gabriel Bortoleto Audi 1:29.679
13 Nico Hülkenberg Audi 1:29.707
14 Franco Colapinto Alpine 1:29.983
15 Carlos Sainz Williams 1:30.197
16 Alexander Albon Williams 1:30.650
17 Oliver Bearman Haas 1:31.083
18 Esteban Ocon Haas 1:31.714
19 Sergio Pérez Cadillac 1:31.776
20 Valtteri Bottas Cadillac 1:32.020
21 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin 1:32.910
22 Lance Stroll Aston Martin 1:32.988
And here is how the constructors stand:
1 Mercedes 302pts
2 Ferrari 204
3 McLaren 159
4 Red Bull 115
5 Alpine 57
6 Racing Bulls 44
7 Haas 21
8 Williams 11
9 Audi 2
10 Aston Martin 1
11 Cadillac 0
A reminder of the sprint race points system: 1st gets 8pts, 2nd 7pts, 3rd 6pts, down to 1pt for 8th. And these are the totals the drivers are seeking to add to:
1 Kimi Antonelli Mercedes 171pts
2 George Russell Mercedes 131
3 Lewis Hamilton Ferrari 125
4 Oscar Piastri McLaren 80
5 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 79
6 Lando Norris McLaren 79
7 Max Verstappen Red Bull 73
8 Isack Hadjar Red Bull 42
9 Pierre Gasly Alpine 41
10 Liam Lawson Racing Bulls 30
11 Oliver Bearman Haas 18
12 Franco Colapinto Alpine 16
13 Arvid Lindblad Racing Bulls 14
14 Carlos Sainz Williams 6
15 Alexander Albon Williams 5
16 Esteban Ocon Haas 3
17 Gabriel Bortoleto Audi 2
18 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin 1
Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas (both Cadillac) remain on nuls points, along with Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) and Nico Hülkenberg (Audi).
The drivers warming up now in front of a very strong crowd. The expectation is that there will be 570,000 people through the gates across the weekend.
Preamble
So where, exactly, is Formula One, other than on the Northamptonshire-Buckinghamshire border at a converted second world war airfield? Really, who knows.
At the top of the standings, George Russell’s challenge seemed to be forlorn after Monaco, when the racing gods conspired against him once more and he finished pointless while his Mercedes teammate, Kimi Antonelli, won again. Since then Russell has come second and first while the Italian has had a DNF and third, and now the gap in the standings is down from 68pts to a rather more manageable 40pts.
In the buildup to last weekend in Austria we were expecting Ferrari to carry on the form they had shown with Lewis Hamilton’s win at Barcelona, only for Charles Leclerc drop from second to eighth, and Hamilton from third to fifth, once racing happened. The suggestion was that the altitude was the disruptive factor, but no one knew for sure how the upgrades would work elsewhere.
We then spent a week hearing from drivers worried that Silverstone’s long straights were going to lead to slower speeds as the layout of fast corners meant electrical energy would not be harvested through braking elsewhere on the lap, and would be exhausted on the extended runs. Hamilton said: “I think this is going to be an unprecedented weekend in terms of the power deployment. All us drivers have been talking in the drivers’ chat [about] just how poor the power is going to be through this track. We run out of battery power. There’s only a few corners to charge the engine.”
Come Friday’s qualifying for today’s sprint race, Hamilton took pole and promptly rowed back on his fears, saying: “Even if you heard me in the press conference, I was like: ‘The track is not going to be the same.’ That’s what we all thought, but the track is still phenomenal, the track still feels great. The engine drop-off is not anywhere near what we anticipated.”
No driver has been more outspoken than Max Verstappen about the 2026 regulations, but even he had something approaching a smile last weekend after coming second at Red Bull’s home race. Still, in the week he said of Silverstone: “I love the track but I did a few laps on the simulator, I just started laughing. It felt like a different track to be honest. You barely have battery around the lap.” Yet he will start third and, if not exactly sunny, he has at least been mollified, even as rumours about his future swirl.
Join me from 11.30 for the buildup to noon’s sprint race start, as we let events themselves try to make some sense of it all. In the meantime, here’s Giles Richards’s sprint qualifying report.
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