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Formula One leader Max Verstappen has won the British Grand Prix as Red Bull stayed unbeaten in 2023 and equalled McLaren’s 1988 record run of 11 victories in a row.
McLaren’s Lando Norris finished second for the rejuvenated British team in front of a 160,000-strong home crowd at Silverstone on Sunday, with his young Australian rookie teammate Oscar Piastri coming home fourth.
Piastri, enjoying his best result by far in his fledgling F1 career to pick up 12 world championship points, was pipped to the podium by seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, who finished third for Mercedes.
“Eleven in a row. That’s pretty crazy,” said Verstappen over the team radio after his sixth win in a row and eighth in 10 races this season.
The double world champion Verstappen also took the fastest lap to surge 99 points clear of closest rival and teammate Sergio Perez, who finished sixth after starting 15th.
Verstappen started on pole position but did not have it all his own way with Norris, alongside on the front row, seizing the lead at the start.
The Briton stayed ahead until lap five when Verstappen passed with DRS (drag reduction) assistance at the end of the Wellington Straight.
The Red Bull did not disappear into the distance, however, with Norris still within a second of Verstappen five laps later and the McLaren drivers agreeing to hold position for the benefit of the team and to manage the tyres.
“I did what I could. I brought the fight to Max for as long as possible,” said Norris.
The safety car, deployed from lap 33 to 38 after Haas driver Kevin Magnussen’s engine died and burst into flames, bunched up the pack with the top three getting a cheap pitstop before the final 14 laps of racing.
The deployment of the safety car was ill-timed for Piastri, who may well have been denied his first podium place.
Haas’s Nico Hulkenberg and Perez made contact on lap eight in a battle for 13th, with the German then pitting for a new front wing.
Alpine’s Esteban Ocon was the first retirement, told by the Renault-owned team that it was all over due to a hydraulic leak when he returned to the pits on lap 10.
Teammate Pierre Gasly also retired on a bleak afternoon for the Renault-owned outfit.
Organisers could breathe a sigh of relief after a feared protest by ‘Just Stop Oil’ campaigners, who invaded the track last year, failed to materialise.
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