Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz claims first F1 win ahead of Pérez in dramatic British GP

Carlos Sainz won an incident-packed and dramatic British Grand Prix for Ferrari after China’s Guanyu Zhou escaped from an enormous accident. Sergio Pérez was second for Red Bull while Lewis Hamilton equalled his best finish of the season with a magnificent third place after an absolutely thrilling fight at Silverstone. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was in fourth with Alpine’s Fernando Alonso in fifth. Championship leader Max Verstappen could manage only seventh after he took damage.

It was Sainz’s first F1 win on the occasion of his 150th race and could not have been a more gripping affair. The Spaniard had to fight hard in a unpredictable race and take every chance to seal the place to become only the second Spaniard to win in F1, alongside Alonso. Hamilton, too, showed resilience and pace in battling to a brilliant podium.

Verstappen took the lead with a fast start and Hamilton also made a superb getaway leaping from fifth to third but behind them there was a major incident into turn one. The race was almost immediately stopped after a multi-car shunt involved Zhou’s Alfa Romeo suffering a high-speed impact with the barriers, in which his car was flipped and came to a halt between the armco barrier and the catch fencing and it took time to extract him. He was safely removed and taken to the medical centre for examination, He was conscious and was released having been declared fit.

George Russell was clipped by Pierre Gasly in the incident also involving Yuki Tsunoda, Esteban Ocon and Alex Albon and the Mercedes driver then collided with Zhou, turning his car over, causing it to hurtle at high speed across the gravel trap before impacting he barriers and sailing over them into the fence. Russell’s car took sufficient damage