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The exhilarating racing during the closing stages of the British Grand Prix is a “testament” to the direction Formula 1 is heading in, according to the stars of the dicey-final laps.
While concerns over porpoising have dominated the headlines, F1’s new generation of cars have generally enjoyed a positive introduction in terms of the racing they produce.
This was helped by Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc’s dogfights in Bahrain and Jeddah producing an instant example of what is possible in F1’s new era across the opening two rounds of the season.
And you could argue this past weekend’s Silverstone race was quite possibly the best advertisement yet – though was it simply a product of the track and the race and safety car restarts?
The three-way scrap for second place after the final safety car restart was the height of the plethora of great racing throughout the 52 laps.
This is why we love racing ❤️#BritishGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/VT7WudZxug
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 4, 2022
Having passed Lewis Hamilton shortly after the restart, Sergio Perez dived to the inside of second-place driver Leclerc at Stowe with seven laps to go and the duo ran side-by-side all the way to the Vale chicane.
It was a no-holds-barred brawl through the chicane and Leclerc’s aggressive defence against Perez allowed Hamilton to sneak past the pair of them on the exit of the corner.
Perez then lunged down the inside of Hamilton at the Village right-hander a few corners later and edged the seven-time world champion off the track. Whether that was acceptable racing is a question for another day, but it was undoubtedly thoroughly entertaining to watch.
And it was a battle that Perez and Hamilton relished after the race.
“The level of racing we were able to do across the grid was great,” Perez said post-race.
“It really felt like we were able to race each other hard. We were able to follow each other through the high speeds.
“Even when I overtook Lewis, he got me back because he could stay literally next to me, so it was really very good racing.
“And I think certainly this is a good test for this generation of cars, where we are able to follow each other and although you lose a position you can get it back and keep fighting the other car, so I think it was great what we’ve seen today in terms of these regulations.”
Perez added that the “epic” final laps reminded him of “junior racing”, a sentiment that Hamilton shared.
“That was very reminiscent of the karting days,” Hamilton said. “And I feel that that’s Formula 1 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.”
Leclerc used Perez’s forceful attack on Hamilton as an opportunity to overtake Hamilton for third place through the Aintree left-hand kink and down the Wellington Straight.
One lap later, Hamilton tried it around the outside of Brooklands which then became a sweeping move around the outside of Leclerc at Luffield and Woodcote.
This left them side-by-side on the run to Copse where the duo managed to avoid a repeat of the Hamilton/Verstappen 2021 clash – prompting a cheeky “clearly a lot different to what I experienced last year” jibe from Hamilton.
Leclerc emerged ahead but Hamilton breezed through down Hanger Straight and had the third place sealed before they reached Stowe.
It was arguably the best multi-car scrap of the season and one between three drivers from three different teams.
Tyre differences played a role – with Hamilton admitting he needed a “tyre deficit” for Leclerc to be able to pass the Ferrari – and the mix of strategies during the final safety car period inevitably helped the action.
There was also action further down the order, as evidenced by Esteban Ocon’s post-race reaction – Ocon having retired before the safety car bunched the field up.
“[Following was] much better than the previous years, yeah!” he said.
“I had a close fight with Max, a close fight with Nicky [Nicholas Latifi], a close fight with Yuki [Tsunoda], I had quite a lot of things going on, so, yeah, I could see how it feels.”
Perez’s comparison to junior series racing is a valid one as it felt almost reminiscent of the end of a Formula 2 feature race, when drivers on opposing tyre strategies converge, and the podium places are often decided in the final laps.
When considering the merit of the racing, it has to be said that there are also few circuits that better allow for multi-corner battles than Silverstone given its flowing nature and open corners where alternative lines are possible.
But on the evidence of the 2022 race at least, it appeared that drivers could stick much closer to the back of the next car through the high-speed sections in a way that just hasn’t looked possible at this track during the hybrid era so far.
Previously, the majority of the moves would be made into Stowe and then completed by the time they exit the corner (or even on entry if DRS assistance is involved) but many of the fights in 2022 took place elsewhere on the track or extended long beyond Stowe like with the Perez/Hamilton/Leclerc fight.
Following was also generally easier through Jeddah’s high-speed corners, producing plenty of overtakes in that race and further supporting the notion that the 2022 cars have improved the racing.
It’s certainly the case that overtaking is easier when it’s a two- or three-driver duel but the multi-car DRS trains that were present at such races as Imola show it’s hardly job done when it comes to solving F1’s (lack of) overtaking problem.
But Silverstone was evidence of a significant step forward. While the circumstances of the weekend helped, it’s one that the 2022 cars deserve to take at least some of the credit for producing.
Better judgments will be made once F1 reaches the summer break and after a whole season, but the British GP gave a mouth-watering taste of what we could come to expect a lot more frequently.
