Formula 1 British Grand Prix: Max Verstappen wins his sixth consecutive race ahead of Lando Norris

Max Verstappen made easy work of everyone else in Sunday’s British Grand Prix ahead of a surprise second-place finish for McLaren’s Lando Norris.

Verstappen lost the lead off the start to Norris after a slow getaway. But the outright pace of the Red Bull car made it easy for Verstappen to pass Norris, drive away and build a sizable gap before the lone safety car of the race for Kevin Magnussen’s stopped car.

The safety car came before Verstappen and Norris had pitted, so they were able to make a pit stop with everyone else running slower than usual and retain their track position. Lewis Hamilton also benefitted from that strategy and was able to stay ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri after passing Piastri when the McLaren driver made a pit stop before the safety car.

Verstappen then won by more than three seconds in the 15-lap sprint to the finish after the safety car, while Norris finished a convincing second over Hamilton. Piastri got the best finish of his career in fourth, while Hamilton’s Mercedes teammate George Russell finished fifth.

The win is Verstappen's eighth in the first 10 races of the season and continues Red Bull's streak of winning every race so far this season. Red Bull has won 11 races in a row dating to last season, and Sunday's win is their first British Grand Prix victory since 2012.

McLaren’s qualifying pace was no fluke

While it was surprising to see both of McLaren’s drivers finish in the top five for the first time since the Singapore Grand Prix a season ago, there was nothing flukey about the pace the team showed in qualifying.

Norris qualified second, while Piastri was third ahead of both Ferrari and Mercedes drivers. While Verstappen drove away from Norris after he passed him for the lead, both McLaren drivers looked to be the best of the rest before the pit stop sequence.

Norris also held off Hamilton over the race’s final stages on a set of hard tires. McLaren pitted for the hard compound tires after starting on the mediums, while Hamilton and Verstappen chose to take the soft tires. Those tires conceivably should've put Hamilton in position to easily get past Norris, but the hard tires were a good fit for the McLaren, and Hamilton couldn’t put on an extended challenge for second place.

Piastri also pitted for a set of hard tires and kept George Russell at bay over the final laps, despite Russell being on a set of medium tires. Russell started the race on the soft tires and had surprising pace and durability.

The fight behind Red Bull is fun

We’ll get straight to the point: The 2023 season is Verstappen’s crowning moment and a year of Red Bull domination. But if you can look past first place every week, there’s some fascinating happenings behind them.

McLaren’s performance Sunday adds to an already crowded fight for the second-fastest team among Mercedes, Aston Martin and Ferrari. Mercedes is second in the constructor’s standings thanks to its reliability and race pace on Sundays, while Aston Martin seems to have cooled off a bit since Fernando Alonso’s hot start.

Ferrari is up and down and found itself on the wrong end of the strategy calls once again Sunday. Both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz pitted early and needed the race to run green to use the undercuts to their advantage. The safety car threw a wrench in those plans; however, it was no guarantee that both Sainz and Leclerc could've stayed ahead of the Mercedes cars anyway.

McLaren is still way back in the constructor’s standings of the other three teams because of its slow start to the season. Competing for second-best is a long way off. But if the pace the team showed Sunday is real, then the battle for the other podium spots is going to be a heck of a lot of fun.

Race results

1. Max Verstappen

2. Lando Norris

3. Lewis Hamilton

4. Oscar Piastri

5. George Russell

6. Sergio Perez

7. Fernando Alonso

8. Alex Albon

9. Charles Leclerc

10. Carlos Sainz

11. Logan Sergeant

12. Valtteri Bottas

13. Nico Hulkenberg

14. Lance Stroll

15. Zhou Guanyu

16. Yuki Tsunoda

17. Nyck De Vries

18. Pierre Gasly

19. Kevin Magnussen

20. Esteban Ocon