Kimi Antonelli has won the sprint race at the British Grand Prix, holding off Lewis Hamilton to take victory by just under three seconds. The Italian managed to stay with the Ferrari at the start before launching his move at Copse on the opening lap to take control of the sprint.<\/p>\n
Antonelli was able then to control the sprint race on lap eight and just about hang on despite the pressure from the seven-time champion as they pulled away from the McLaren\u2019s Lando Norris as the field began to spread during the seventeen-lap race. But was put under constant pressure from Hamilton.<\/p>\n
The Italian let the race settle down after trading places early on, before homing in on the Ferrari and blasting past Hamilton on the Hangar Straight on lap eight after strategically saving his battery charge. The duo locked in a championship fight appeared to be in a class of their own.<\/p>\n
He made one attempt at Brooklands at the end of the Wellington Straight only to be rebuffed, before blasting past Hamilton on the Hangar Straight on lap eight after strategically saving his battery charge.<\/p>\n
Norris was able to fend off the second Mercedes of George Russell, finishing eight and a half tenths ahead, meaning the second Mercedes was unable to narrow his teammate\u2019s championship lead. \u00a0Russell had passed Max Verstappen during the first half, but then the Red Bull started to fall into the grid of Charles Leclerc and was passed by the Ferrari, but held off Oscar Piastri.<\/p>\n
Antonelli said, \u201cThe momentum is there. We are doing a great job together with the team, but we cannot let our guard lower. Lewis and Ferrari are doing an incredible job. Red Bull and McLaren are coming, and George is super quick. We just need to keep raising that bar and keep delivering performances.\u201d<\/p>\n
Norris added, \u201cIt was a very good race. I’m very, very happy. Good start, good first lap, not the pace to go with these guys, but had a good battle with George. Pleasantly surprised.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was fighting the car everywhere to be honest. It wasn’t a straightforward race and I knew George would be catching, like he was towards the end of the race. We’re not on a similar level to these guys (Mercedes and Ferrari) on car performance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last year\u2019s race winner, Norris, was embroiled in a five-car battle for third, which also included Leclerc, Verstappen and teammate Oscar Piastri, as they traded places throughout the sprint, as they were covered by about five seconds.<\/p>\n
Leclerc managed to hang on and pulled slightly ahead to finish just under two seconds behind Norris, as the world champion blasted from sixth to third during the frantic opening laps. Piastri finished a second behind Verstappen as the top four teams had a sizeable advantage over Liam Lawson, who was twelve seconds behind as he scored the final point for Racing Bulls.<\/p>\n
Isack Hadjar split the sister team, the Frenchman finishing four seconds ahead of Arvid Lindblad, who missed out on scoring points at the first opportunity at Silverstone. He was five seconds ahead of Arvid Lindblad as he denied the English-Swedish driver points at the first opportunity at his home race, as he completed the top ten.<\/p>\n
Pierre Gasly missed out on the top ten by just over five seconds as he finished three-quarters of a second ahead of Alpine teammate Franco Colapinto. The bottom half was largely a two-by-two affair, Nico Hulkenberg eight tenths ahead of Audi teammate Gabriel Bortoletto with the Haas duo three seconds behind as Ollie Bearman was four seconds ahead of Esteban Ocon.<\/p>\n
Carlos Sainz was twenty-four seconds ahead of his Williams teammate Alex Albon, the latter at the bottom of the British drivers. They were both twenty-four seconds clear of the backmarkers, Cadillac and Aston Martin. Valtteri Bottas adding to the feeling that Cadillac may be starting to pull ahead of Aston Martin, as he was sixteen seconds ahead of Fernando Alonso.<\/p>\n
Their respective teammates finished a lap down, Lance Stroll a second ahead of former teammate Sergio Perez. However, the Mexican was given a ten-second penalty for causing a collision.<\/p>\n
Kimi Antonelli has won the sprint race at the British Grand Prix, holding off Lewis Hamilton to take victory by just under three seconds. The Italian managed to stay with the Ferrari at the start before launching his move at Copse on the opening lap to take control of the sprint. Antonelli was able then<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15459,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[2339,319,320,338,625,709,2252,1131,1298,1440,1612,1829,1843,1881,1884,2068,2079],"class_list":["post-16141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-race-reports","tag-2339","tag-british-gp","tag-british-grand-prix","tag-buckinghamshire","tag-england","tag-ferrari","tag-kimi-antonelli","tag-lando-norris","tag-mercedes","tag-northamptonshire","tag-race-report","tag-silverstone","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-sprint","tag-sprint-race","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16141"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16143,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16141\/revisions\/16143"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}