As Formula One’s European summer stretch continued, the Paddock arrived at one of the most historic and driver favourite venues on the race calendar — Silverstone. The home of the British Grand Prix and the home race for seven of the ten teams, steeped in history and atmosphere - it welcomed fans in their hundreds of thousands to the birthplace of the very first F1 World Championship race in 1950. For the Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team, the race marked not only a return to home soil, but also a crucial opportunity to continue building momentum following encouraging performances in Canada and Austria where the AMR25 showed improved race pace. The team brought a number of upgrades to their cars, including; a new floor body, floor fences, floor edge & coke/engine cover. With Silverstone often producing unpredictable action and strategic nuance, there was cautious optimism that the team could once again target points with both cars and so it proved.
FP1 began, with overcast skies and a brisk wind, so the Aston Martin drivers wasted little time in heading out - the team eager to establish a setup baseline. Alonso and Stroll headed out on hard tyres, which was unusual, as they were not expecting to use these in the race. Only Alonso was running the upgrades in this session, but he looked comfortable immediately, circulating near the top 10, briefly going P6. But Stroll, without the upgrades, was only one spot behind him. After 15 minutes though, it was Stroll that was enjoying a more productive session, who, even though he had a spin, was in P11, with Alonso just behind him. At the halfway stage, the pair had been surpassed by other cars, on their own routines, with Stroll dropping to 13th and Alonso to 14th. Nearing the end of the session, Alonso was making the upgrades work in his favour and was in P11, 0.2 of a second ahead of Stroll in P12, which is how the pair finished. Lewis Hamilton, for the first time at Silverstone in his red Ferrari, was fastest. Later in the afternoon, with both AMR25s fitted with the upgrades, the initial results were unconvincing. After 15 minutes of practice, Alonso was only P13 and Stroll P14. It hadn’t improved by the halfway stage either, with Alonso in P15 and Stroll in P17. Then, counterintuitively, Stroll put his AMR25 in P6, before dropping a place with 15 minutes to go, and Alonso into P12, which is where they finished FP2 - Stroll P7, Alonso P12. This time Norris was fastest. For the final Practice session on Saturday, the clouds above the track were looking quite grey when it got underway, after a 5 minute delay, due to debris being cleared up from an earlier event, but there was no rush for any of the drivers to go out immediately. The two Aston Martins headed onto the circuit but came straight back into the pits. After 15 minutes, Stroll went out and set a time – going P6 temporarily. At the halfway stage Alonso was only P13 & Stroll P16 and with only 15 minutes left, Alonso was still only 12th, yet Stroll had dropped to 17th. Then the inevitable red flag came out, because an end plate has fallen off an (unknown) car. When the session got back underway, with less than 4 minutes remaining, there was another red flag, when the suspension on Bortoleto's Sauber broke at high speed. The clock counted down to end the session, but it didn’t quite mark the end of events. On his way back into the pit lane, Bearman smashed the front wing of his Haas into the barriers at that pit entry, for which he was given a 10 place grid penalty, as he was driving way too fast into the pits under red flag conditions. The Aston Martins meanwhile finished with Alonso in P17 and Stroll P19. Were the upgrades truly working?
Later that afternoon the first round of Qualifying got underway and Stroll headed out early followed by almost all of the rest of the drivers – keen to record a time before any precipitation that was forecast arrived. Alonso immediately placed himself in P3, ahead of Norris, Russell, Hamilton and Leclerc. Stroll meanwhile, was languishing in 18th place. Just when Stroll went out again the session was red flagged as Colapinto slid into the gravel, picking a lot of it up and depositing it on track. He then came to a stop at the end of the pit exit. Fortunately, Stroll had managed to finish his lap and went P12. But it wasn’t going to be enough – the session restarted with just over 6 minutes left and other drivers improved their times, which pushed Stroll down to 18th, thus eliminating him. Alonso didn’t see the need to go out again – feeling safe and not wanting to take any more life out of any tyres. He finished in P5. Alonso then repeated in Q2 what he’d done in Q1 – placing his AMR25 in P3 on his first run, temporarily though. Norris then went P1 and pushed Alonso down a place, followed by Russell, who slotted into 4th, just ahead of Alonso. This time though Alonso did join all the rest of the drivers to put in a final effort, but he abandoned his lap once he knew he was through to the top 10 - in P7, clearly saving everything for Q3 and the race. On his first effort in the battle for pole position and a decent top 10 grid place, Alonso went P7. However, when he went out again to attempt a faster final lap he could only go 9th fastest. However, he would start 7th on the grid for the race, as both Bearman and Antonelli, ahead of him, would have to serve grid penalties. Stroll would start 17th, also due to Bearman’s 10 place grid penalty. At the front, in an intense battle, Verstappen grabbed pole position, ahead of Piastri and Norris.
Torrential rain overnight and intermittent showers before the race made the FIA concerned the track was too wet to let the cars loose for the formation lap and it was started behind the safety car. Every driver had the intermediate wet weather tyres bolted onto their race cars but before the end of the formation lap Russell, Leclerc and a few other drivers came into the pits to exchange them for slick race tyres, thinking that they would be on the faster tyres once the race was underway and the track was drying. The disadvantage was that they would have to start from the pit lane. From the proper race start the drivers tip-toed round the circuit, but Gasly passed Alonso on the first lap, just before Lawson was hit by Ocon, pushing him off track & out of the race, which required the Virtual Safety Car (VSC) to be deployed. Despite Gasly’s overtake, Alonso benefited from Russell starting from the pit lane and he was in P6. Stroll meanwhile, who’d had a much better launch off the start, was up to 12th. Whilst the race was being controlled by the VSC, Colapinto came into pits, stalled and couldn't restart his car, putting him out of the race. As the VSC ended and the race got back underway, the drivers tried to apply the power, but the rain started pouring again, which caught Bortoleto out. He slid into the gravel, managed to keep going, but had damaged the underside too much and was instructed by his team to retire the car. This necessitated the VSC again so that his car could be cleared – 3 down/17 to go! Taking advantage of the cars adhering to the VSC, Stroll came into the pits to take a gamble and he was put onto soft slick tyres. He came out 12th just as the VSC ended and everyone went racing again. Although conditions were still not ideal, Stroll started to make progress on his faster tyres, passing Ocon and Hulkenberg on lap 9 and hauling himself up to 10th – the same lap that at the front, Piastri passed Verstappen for the race lead. On the next lap Stroll passed Tsunoda and Albon, putting himself in P8, two places behind Alonso who was still P6. It then started to bucket down again, so Stroll had to come back into the pits and put on wet weather tyres. He came out 11th almost entirely undoing all the progress he had achieved. But, at that point, lap 11, a number of drivers, including Alonso, who had been on the same intermediate weather tyres since the start of the race, came into the pits for new tyres. Alonso came out 10th but Stroll, who had been in just a few laps earlier, climbed up the order, to P6. At the front Norris passed Verstappen, who slid off on a particularly wet patch of the track and took 2nd place. On lap 13 Stroll continued his momentum and passed Ocon for P5 and later in the lap passed Hulkenberg. The full Safety Car was sent out, as it was raining very hard – but only for a couple of laps. Just when the safety car ended Hadjar slid off track and out of the race, which required the Safety Car to come out again. During this time, Ocon came into the pits, which moved Alonso up to 9th and meant that by lap 20 Stroll was 4th and Alonso 9th. When the Safety Car came in this time, it was the turn of the current World Champion, Verstappen, to be caught out by the wet conditions and experience a major spin, which dropped him down to 10th and elevated Stroll to P3 and Alonso to P8, just as we approached the halfway stage of the race. At that point, the Stewards made a decision that would change the outcome of the race – they handed race leader, Piastri, a 10 second penalty, for slamming on the brakes too much behind the safety car, almost causing Verstappen to smash into him. This meant that Norris, although 3 seconds behind Piastri on track, became the de facto race leader. With 20 laps to go, Hulkenberg had managed to ease himself up to within a second of Stroll, but due to the conditions no DRS was in force….yet. Behind Hulkenberg, Hamilton had got past Gasly for 5th and was in pursuit of Hulkenberg and Stroll ahead. But that was all about to change when on lap 34 DRS was enabled and Hulkenberg was able to easily pass Stroll, who then had Hamilton behind him and he was able to pass Stroll swiftly on the next lap. With Stroll now down to 5th it was Alonso’s turn to be concerned, as after his spin, Verstappen had gained some places and was only 3 seconds behind Alonso and there were still 15 laps to the chequered flag. Sensing the danger, the team decided to call Alonso into the pits and took the risk of putting him on slick tyres – he came out in 14th place. It quickly became clear that Alonso was struggling on those tyres and the gamble wasn’t paying off. Tsunoda, who was 15th, quickly caught and passed Alonso and in less than a lap pulled out more than 12 seconds ahead. With 10 laps to the finish, Stroll was P5 and Alonso P15. Stroll was then called into the pits and he came out P8. With the track clearly drying and the slick tyre showing on the timing screens that it was the tyre to be on, a number of drivers were called into the pits. After all the tyre changes had been executed, Stroll was still in P5 and Alonso was P9, but on lap 45 he passed Albon and was up to P8. On the penultimate lap Verstappen had gained to within a second of Stroll and then passed him, as Stroll just went wide around one of the turns and Verstappen was just able to drive past easily. Unfortunately, it didn’t end there for the Aston Martin pair – on the last lap Gasly passed Stroll and Albon regained his place from Alonso resulting in Stroll finishing 7th and Alonso 9th, meaning for the first time this season both Aston Martins finished in the top 10. Norris won the race in his McLaren, Piastri, in the other McLaren came 2nd, even after serving his penalty and for the first time in 15 years and 239 races Nico Hulkenberg grabbed the final place on the podium – well done to him.
After the race though, both drivers were less than delighted with the double points finish. Stroll commented "It was a very mixed weekend for us – we showed some decent pace during Practice on Friday, which unfortunately we couldn't build on during Qualifying and started from the back. The team made some good strategy calls during the race and gave us a good result overall. I really struggled with tyre degradation and unfortunately we weren't in a position where we could fight for more." Alonso agreed, "I feel like it was a missed opportunity today despite scoring some points. It was difficult to read with the rain falling again and we lost some positions in the first pitstop. For the second pitstop we pitted too soon and I lost a lot of time on a slightly damp track with slick tyres. We had some good pace but in the end we weren't able to capitalise on an eventful race."
Aston Martin’s results at the British Grand Prix may have been flattering, with all the rookie drivers showing misjudgements, as did many seasoned campaigners, as did teams. The AMR25 may not yet be the fastest car in the midfield, but across three consecutive races, the team has converted some opportunities into points. With this momentum, Aston Martin heads to Belgium in 2 weeks’ time, with renewed confidence. The Constructors’ battle for the middle-ranking teams is alive and the green machines are firmly in the fight.