'Mega' F1 racing... every team can reach Q3 — 'Why change the rules?'

The British GP provided some sensational entertainment up and down the field, but it was the late race battle for the podium placings involving Charles Leclerc, Sergio Perez and Lewis Hamilton that really caught the attention.

At one point, while the first two were battling each other, Hamilton managed to slip by both of them, only to lose out again just a few seconds later. It was sensational stuff, likened by some observers to the current generation’s version of Gilles Villeneuve v Rene Arnoux at Dijon in 1979.

And nobody enjoyed it more than the drivers themselves, having spent so many years frustrated by how hard it is to actually fight with the F1 cars of recent times.

“That was very reminiscent of the karting days,” said Hamilton. “And I feel that that’s F1 at its best. The fact that we were able to follow and dice like that, lap on lap is a testament to the direction I think that we’ve we’re now in. I was just grateful that I could be in the battle. Because I’ve not been in that fight for a while.”

“Those final laps were a great fight with Lewis,” said Perez. “It has been so long since we had a good fight, so I was ready to have him back. And also with Charles. He was very aggressive but fair, and I’m sure the fans enjoyed it.”

Even Leclerc, who saw a potential win fade into a frustrating fourth place by the flag, admitted that he’d had fun.

“It was quite on the limit and I had to be on the limit to try and keep my position,” he said. “I don’t think I could have done much better than that. Yeah, it was fun, but on the other hand I was very frustrated.

“I was on used tyres, and all of this was very tricky, so I just had to use everything that was possible. I was always checking that Lewis was a bit behind at the apex, to try and remember the rule, and to play with the rules. I tried to do my best.”

Fernando Alonso, who was just behind the battling group and  waiting to pounce if things went wrong, enjoyed the spectacle.

“It was really fun at the end,” said the Spaniard. “And obviously we were not at the fight, but we were just behind and we saw all the action in front.

“We were P5, so I was hoping maybe two cars touch each other, and the podium was there for us. In the end they raced very hard but with a lot of respect. So still fun to watch from behind.”

The superb Silverstone show was well-timed, as it came at a stage when the impact of the 2022 rules has been under some scrutiny, and there is talk of tweaking the technical regulations for next season, for example, in an attempt to address porpoising.

It also came after a run of races that didn’t really showcase the new rules. Monaco was inevitably the usual procession, and while there was some entertainment in Baku (where porpoising/bouncing was off the scale) and Montreal, their tight natures do not lend themselves to wheel-to-wheel racing.

After those three street/temporary tracks on the trot a perfect storm of factors helped to create some spectacular entertainment. Firstly the wide-open spaces of Silverstone have always managed to generate good racing, even in times when drivers found it hard to follow.

Throw in a mix of tyre strategies, a grid where some people were out of position after a wet qualifying session, the fact that teams had limited information after rain also wiped out FP1, and there were enough variables to help trigger some action up and down the field.

And of course it was the late safety car, with Leclerc stranded on his old hard tyres, that helped to create the sensational final laps.

Nevertheless there could not have been a better advert for the 2022 regulations – and that includes the cost cap, which has clearly already played a role in allowing the midfield teams to make progress.

“We saw racing everywhere,” Haas boss Guenther Steiner, who is not keen to see changes to the technical regs, told Motor Sport. “I think the rules work. And the rules worked for everybody, see how close the field was together?

“Again, I say, the budget cap works. The technical rules work, and also the technical rules shouldn’t change for next year. I think we should leave them, because I didn’t hear anybody complaining about bouncing or porpoising today. I think today was a great race everywhere.

“It shows that it works, why would we change it now? That was the aim, we achieved something, and now all of a sudden, we want to do something different.”

“It was mega racing, it was just refreshing,” said Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack. “I think for that for all these people that were here it was mega to have bought the tickets.

“And you could see now also cars with different concepts being very performant and fighting for the win. It would have been interesting to have George [Russell] there as well, because he started on a different strategy also. And Max [Verstappen], obviously. But it was great. I think the last 10 races were really big advertising for F1.

“But we must not forget also that we had a safety car, and probably, if it takes longer then you spread the field again. But let’s take it, it was nice.”

Alfa Romeo boss Fred Vasseur is adamant that it’s not just about the wheel-to-wheel battling, but also the variety of teams that are currently able to at least challenge for points.

“I think it’s very good for F1 to have a team like Haas who is P8 or P9 in the championship today,” he said even before the Silverstone race, where the US-owned team scored more points and jumped Aston for eighth.

“Last week [in Montreal] they were fifth and sixth on the grid. And if you ever look the last 25 years in F1, we never had a team at mid-season with P9 in the championship to be able to be with the two cars on the third row.

“And this is a very good signal for F1. Now everybody on the grid could fight for Q3, everybody on the grid could fight for a very good result in the race. And this is just the cost cap and the new regulation. We have at least to admit this, that this change had at least this impact.

“And if you have a look on the number of points that the last three teams of the championship today scored after nine races, and if you compare with the number of points that the last three teams scored, the year before after nine races last year was zero. Williams didn’t score, and we scored two or three points.”

Will we see as much entertainment in Austria? Well remember first of all it’s a sprint weekend, which means we’ll have two goes at it.

The sprint schedule also means that teams go straight into qualifying after a single FP1 session, and given that most of them are still adjusting to the update packages they brought to Silverstone optimising their revised cars, especially with the dreaded porpoising and bouncing potentially creating headaches for some, won’t be easy.

It’s a much shorter and tighter track than Silverstone, and as we’ve seen in recent years passing attempts often involve some controversy either over a driver going off track to make it happen or being edged wide.

At Silverstone the race directors and stewards acted like a football referee waving play on, and there were no penalties associated with any of the battling at the front.

Whether that policy translates to the Red Bull Ring, where track limits have traditionally been an ongoing talking point, remains to be seen…