Lewis Hamilton looking for more Silverstone glory. Photo Don Kennedy
By Don Kennedy
Silverstone could easily be the title of a western movie, with the name sounding indicative of a western town where an OK Corral-type shootout might occur.
It is actually the name of the race circuit in Northampton that hosted the first ever Formula One championship race back in 1950. During WWII it was an RAF base so it has seen its fair share of action, albeit not of the western type.
This weekend's sold-out British Grand Prix should see a continuation of the Red Bull versus Ferrari battle that has raged since the first race of the season in Bahrain, but the performances of the Mercedes cars in Canada two weeks ago might suggest they could be players in any shootout this weekend.
The team is based in Brackley, just six miles from the circuit, and while drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell aren't exactly new kids in town, with Hamilton a seven-time world champion, everything points to this being race being a turning point for Mercedes, just as it was in the championship battle last year, although for quite different reasons.
Max Verstappen arrived at Silverstone last year, leading Hamilton in the championship by 32 points. After winning the sprint race, with Hamilton second, that lead became 33 points.
It also meant he started the race from pole position, and Hamilton knew that if he didn't overtake Verstappen on the first lap, the chances of the latter winning the race and potentially taking an unassailable lead in the championship were high.
With that mindset, Hamilton relentlessly attacked Verstappen on that opening lap, and as they approached Copse Corner, a right-hander taken at 280kph, with just a slight easing back on the throttle, Hamilton threw caution to the wind.
He drove down the inside of Verstappen, which was to his right, and as Max turned in on the racing line there was contact between the left front wheel of Hamilton's Mercedes, and the right rear of Verstappen's Red Bull. It was contact sufficient to send the Red Bull into a spin and hurtling into the barrier, while Hamilton's car suffered front-wing damage that his team was able to replace when the race was red-flagged.
Had Hamilton deliberately taken Verstappen out with a well–timed and almost perfectly executed manoeuvre? Was it simply bad luck for Verstappen and great fortune for Hamilton? The race stewards determined that Hamilton had caused a collision and gave him a 10-second time penalty, easily made up given his car had superior speed for much of the 2021 season. While Verstappen was being checked out in a local hospital, Hamilton was celebrating on the podium as he recorded his 8th British GP victory. More importantly, he had sliced into Verstappen's championship lead, which was then just eight points with still 12 races to go.
The rest is now part of F1's at times controversial history. The championship would be decided in the last race in Abu Dhabi where both arrived on equal points. With five laps to go, Hamilton had the lead from Verstappen and would make history to become F1's only eight-time champion. But as we know, a crash by Nicolas Latifi in the Williams brought out the safety car and FIA race director Michael Masi allowed only the cars between Hamilton and Verstappen to un-lap themselves so there was a last lap shoot-out during which Verstappen, on fresher tyres, passed Hamilton to become world champion.
Ever since then Hamilton and Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff have considered they were robbed and they set about successfully persuading the FIA to remove Masi from the job.
Thus that championship finale will go down as one of the most controversial since the championship and up there with the two championships decided in 1989 and 1990, which featured Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna, and the 1994 and 1997 titles, when Michael Schumacher was a factor in both, up against Williams drivers Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve. To cut long stories short in respect of those four dramatic finales, Prost won in 1989 after he and his McLaren teammate, Senna, collided at the chicane.
Prost was out but Senna carried on after getting a push from the marshals and crossed the line first. He thought he had retained his title from the previous year but he was disqualified from the race for rejoining the circuit in the wrong place. In 1990, Prost was in the Ferrari and Senna, seeking revenge for 1989, deliberately took Prost out at the first corner and was rewarded with a second world championship. He said after the race it was a racing incident, but returning to Suzuka in 1991 he admitted his actions the year before were premeditated.
Schumacher won the first of his seven world titles at Adelaide in 1994 after he and Hill had started the race separated by one championship point. Schumacher was leading when he hit the wall but Hill, one corner behind, didn't see it and as he went to pass Schumacher's crippled car on the right, Schumacher turned in and they collided. Schumacher went up on two wheels and hit the barrier. Hill carried on to the pits but the car was damaged and he retired from the race, handing Schumacher a dubious championship.
In 1997, with Schumacher now in a Ferrari, he turned in on Villeneuve as the latter tried to overtake for the lead and the championship at the season finale in Jerez. But it didn't work and Schumacher was out while Villeneuve was able to finish third, good enough to win the title.
This season Hamilton hasn't won a race, whereas Verstappen has won six of the nine races held and leads the championship by 46 points from his Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez, with Charles Leclerc in the Ferrari third, 49 points behind.
Hamilton is sixth, some 98 points behind. He won't be a championship contender, but he can still spoil the Red Bull party. The Mercedes car has been suffering from extreme porpoising, or bouncing, as they prefer to call it. It was so bad that Hamilton could hardly get out of his car after the Baku race after finishing fifth and Wolff suggesting Hamilton's back was so bad that he might miss the Canadian GP a week later. Not only did Hamilton race in Canada but he finished third and was very happy. Mercedes had persuaded the FIA to revise the rules to stop the bouncing, even though not all the cars suffered with it. Have Mercedes flexed their political muscle to unduly influence the FIA? Former Dutch racing driver Tom Coronal certainly thinks they can turn their season around, but has questioned the political route.
"First the complaining starts," Coronal told Motorsport.com. "Mercedes is a team that can make the steps. They have the people, the smarts and the money. When two dogs fight over a bone, the third goes with it. Then we get more people racing at the front because a Russell and a Lewis should be able to fight for a championship."
"The complaining to the FIA, so much a political thing, doesn't feel positive."
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says Mercedes' porpoising problem had nothing to with the rules, rather it was the way that team interpreted them.
"The issue with Mercedes is more severe, or certainly has been prior to Canada than any other car," Horner said. "That surely is down to the team. That's within their control to deal with that, if its not affecting others."
"Our drivers have never complained about porpoising. They've said certain circuits could do with tidying up, perhaps resurfacing in places. But we haven't had an issue with bouncing. The problem is they're running their cars stiff. I think their concept is the issue rather than the regulation," he said about Mercedes.
"You've got some of the brightest engineering talent in the world, and things will converge. I doubt we'll be sitting here next year talking about the bouncing, even if the regulations are left alone. If a car is dangerous, a team shouldn't field it, it has that choice. Or the FIA, if they feel an individual car is dangerous, they always have a black flag at their disposal."
Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko was more blunt than Horner after Mercedes' complaints.
"I don't think the FIA's decisions are right," he told Sky Sports. "One team, Mercedes, has the biggest problems and then they react right in the middle of the season. There is a simple solution, you just have to raise the car. Then you don't have bouncing anymore but you lose speed. The fact that they are reacting in this way and trying to impose such powers on the FIA, which practically determine the set-up of the cars, is a quick fix that has certainly not been thought through."
Hamilton says the porpoising is fixed but "we're not finding our sweet spot at the moment. And I really hope, moving to Silverstone… it's such an important race for us and for me so I really hope that…I just want to be in a battle with these guys."
Former F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone, now 92, is always good for a quote heading to Silverstone. He once threatened to removed the race from the calendar because his chauffeur got lost on the road from London, and has questioned Hamilton's motivation.
"He has a competitive nature but he's taking losing a bit easy for my liking," he said.
"I don't think he is actively helping George, I don't think he's doing anything. I don't think he cares too much. He's not prepared to put the effort into winning that he did."
As for Hamilton's back pain? "All b*******", says Ecclestone.
Should Hamilton be close to Verstappen in Sunday's race we may find out about his motivation, which would be called the 'Return to Silverstone' if this was a western movie. It's not, but Ferrari and Mercedes will be hoping for a showdown with Red Bull nonetheless.