Verstappen defeated Hamilton in the sprint and took the GP pole

Valtteri Bottas finished third ahead of Charles Leclerc, while a spin at the start of the race and then a late retirement for Sergio Perez in the second Red Bull cost a lot.

When the lights went out for the 17-lap race, Verstappen managed the better escape route – his initial movement ignited a fire on his left front brake – and was immediately next to Hamilton as they raced off the grid.

Verstappen took the lead at Abbey, defending first place with a number of Weaves on the Wellington Straight, then fending off Hamilton’s attack around the outside of Copse.

This move cost Hamilton momentum and Verstappen opened up a lead of 1.1 seconds at the end of the opening tour – in which Fernando Alonso used his soft tires (Bottas, Esteban Ocon and Kimi Räikkönen were the only other drivers who started on the red rubber walls, the rest on medium), six places from 11.

The two leaders quickly made a gap ahead of Bottas, who took a few laps to join them to run in the 1:30 row, with Verstappen and Hamilton trading fastest laps during the early tours.

At halftime, Verstappen had built a two-second lead when he and Hamilton drove in the low 1.30 minutes and continued to break away from Bottas, who was being followed by Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

Alonso had kept the field behind after leaving several competitors behind in the first corner of the race, then he took advantage of the two McLarens and Perez who fought on the first lap but was defeated by Lando Norris and Daniel on the sixth lap Ricciardo overtakes on lap nine – the first McLaren managed to jump inside Village, while the other managed to get out of the tight right turn better on their respective trains.

Lando Norris, McLaren MCL35M, Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren MCL35M

Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images

With Verstappen and Hamilton continuing to do the fastest laps up front, the gap between them fluctuated slightly as both struggled with severe blisters on their right front tires.

Though the tire problem didn’t have a big impact on pace, Red Bull directed Verstappen to avoid the curbs on the final laps – which reduced his lead from a maximum of 2.8 seconds to 1.4 seconds at the finish line – where he took pole secured the Grand Prix for the race on Sunday.

The decision to start Bottas on Softs didn’t pay off for Mercedes as he finished 7.5 seconds behind Verstappen, albeit solidly at the top of Leclerc, who was 3.7 seconds away for fourth place on the grid for the main race to claim.

Norris and Ricciardo chased the Ferrari home, but were far behind after their fights with Alonso, who received a warning for driving down the straight when he held Sebastian Vettel back to the finish in seventh place – the alpine driver had also tried that tow when he used to defend against the McLarens.

George Russell finished ninth for Williams ahead of Esteban Ocon, but Russell faces a post-race investigation into a lap one collision with Carlos Sainz Jr. in Brooklands.

The Williams driver blocked the sweeping left turn and crashed into the side of the Ferrari, which was pushed off and Sainz fell back to 18th before recovering at the finish to 11th and 0.4 seconds behind Ocon

The big loser of the race was Perez, who will start tomorrow’s race from last place after retiring on the last lap.

The Red Bull driver was in 18th place after losing the rear of his RB16B on lap five to Alonso and Norris as they stormed through Chapel – Perez went through a 360-degree high-speed spin and shot through the grass and gravel up on the slope straight.

He rejoined after just preventing his car from hitting the wall.

The other big incident of the race involved the Haas duo on the first lap when Nikita Mazepin spun after glancing at the right sidepod of teammate Mick Schumacher’s car lapping the Russian driver and he eventually came 9, 4 seconds behind Schumacher at the finish.

Result