945 days. 56 Grand Prix races. For a man who had won in every season of Formula 1 till then to have to wait for so long for another win seems beyond belief. But Sir Lewis Hamilton – the most successful driver in the history of his sport – had to wait that long. Through spells of agony, self-doubt and crushed glimmers of hope. But when it came, it came in the best way possible. Lewis Hamilton claimed his 104th F1 win at his home British Grand Prix on Sunday.

The win was, by all means, a fairytale. On a track no one drives quite like he does. In front of a colosseum of fans adorned in his masks and race number ’44’. He had won in Silverstone a record eight times before – including perhaps one of Formula 1’s greatest-ever drives in 2008 – but his ninth win, in 2024, is perhaps the most special.

“I can’t stop crying,” said Hamilton in the post-race interview. “Since 2021, every day getting up, trying to fight, to train, to put my mind to the task and work as hard as I can,” Hamilton tried to reason.

He didn’t need to. After having a championship taken away from him in heartbreaking circumstances at the end of 2021, Hamilton never got a chance to fight back as Mercedes fell down the pecking order.

Too many times, he had had his ability questioned. Sunday allowed Lewis Hamilton to release years of pent-up emotion: from needing a result for the effort he put, to being able to prove, to himself, that he has still got it. Oh boy, has he still got it.

On Sunday, Hamilton rode the ebbs and flows better than anyone else. He overtook teammate and pole-sitter George Russell on track. He then closed the gap to Lando Norris in a faster McLaren through a tricky spell of rain. Blitzed his outlap to overtake Norris after the final pitstops. And when Norris faded, Hamilton stayed strong, taking care of his soft tyres till the end to hold off a fast-charging Max Verstappen.

It wasn’t a win through luck, or in the fastest car; accusations that’ve unfairly been thrown Hamilton’s way in the past. Instead, it was a display of sheer genius. Hamilton was the best driver on Sunday. Period.

Hamilton himself admitted that he rarely cries. But as he teared up inside his car and then went on to have a long embrace with his father, it brought back memories of Turkey 2020.

Turkey 2020 was the race when Hamilton equalled the record for the most championships in Formula 1 history. The fact that this win caused Hamilton to react in a similar manner to that record-breaking race tells you everything about the magnitude, and what it meant to him.

To top it all off, the win came in Silverstone, his home race. The circuit where a part of the track is named after him. It’s the place where the crowd roars loudest for Formula 1’s most popular driver. As an emotional Hamilton jumped over the barriers and waved the Union Jack high, it was hard to not let a tear escape.

“To make him win again, at the British Grand Prix, in his last race for Mercedes here, it’s almost like a little fairytale. You couldn’t have scripted it better,” quipped Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff at the end of the race.

Despite turning 40 next year, Hamilton may still have many more romantic chapters to write as he prepares to don the Ferrari red next season. But he’ll have to do quite something to beat Sunday’s storyline.

Lando Norris seeks to be a party-wrecker this weekend when he takes on series leader and three-time Formula One world champion Max Verstappen at his Red Bull team’s home Austrian Grand Prix. After a series of impressive results including two consecutive second place finishes behind the Dutchman, the McLaren driver wants to trim his 69-point deficit in the title race. The 24-year-old Englishman believes he has the car and the confidence to put together a winning sequence himself. 

“We’re on a roll and we’re doing well,” said Norris, adding he was frustrated by his own errors.

“I need to tidy up a few little bits and pieces and we’ll be on top. I am confident. 

“Every weekend we go into now, the car is performing extremely well and we’re always there, or thereabouts, within a couple of tenths.”

He blamed himself for not winning from pole in last Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix after beating Verstappen in qualifying. 

Since winning the Miami Grand Prix in May, Norris has moved up a gear to become his friend’s main rival for the title.

He has finished within four seconds or less of Verstappen at Imola, Montreal and Barcelona as he extended his run to 10 seconds in the last 23 races. 

However, he and McLaren know Verstappen will be strong and motivated by massed ranks of his ‘orange army’ on a track where he dominated last year as he stamped his supremacy on the season.

‘Big strides’

This year has been different, however, and a close scrap is in prospect in the 11th round of the championship where a third sprint race this year may also spring a surprise. 

Red Bull’s team boss Christian Horner warned his team are no longer having it their own way and said he expects a difficult weekend. 

“On such a short lap, it’s going to be tight and we expect McLaren, and Lando, to be fast again along with Ferrari and Mercedes.

“Who knows? 

“The one who’s really stepped up is Lando and we’re having to fight really hard for wins at the moment and be on top of our game as a team. But, you know, that’s F1 as it should be!”

After their recent resurgence, Mercedes will hope to stay in contention with seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton buoyed by his first podium this year and team-mate George Russell feeling the Silver Arrows have rediscovered their form and mojo. 

“We’re all feeling excited for the remainder of the season,” said Russell.

“We’ve got more wind tunnel time than all of our rivals and we know what we need to do to make these big strides now.

“We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, but I’m 100 per cent confident we’ll win races this year now.”

Whatever the outcome this weekend, as he seeks a fifth win, Verstappen will extend his record for leading the championship to 50 races.

It is a welcome certainty in the light of last year’s chaos when the result was revised five hours after the event following a spate of penalties for drivers’ exceeding track limits. 

That is unlikely this year as the Red Bull-owned circuit has installed 2.5-metre gravel traps at the exits of Turns Nine and Ten. 

Last year, a total of more than 1,200 possible infringements were investigated resulting in 83 being identified and eight drivers penalised.

McLaren’s Lando Norris (centre) took pole position for the Spanish GP.© AFP

Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton topped the times ahead of Australian Oscar Piastri in an intriguing opening free practice for this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix. Hamilton clocked a best lap in his Mercedes of 1minute and 12.169 seconds to outpace McLaren’s Piastri by 0.029sec with his ‘silver arrows’ team-mate George Russell third. Lando Norris was fourth in the second McLaren ahead of local favourite Charles Leclerc in the leading Ferrari, two-time champion Fernando Alonso and his Aston Martin team-mate Lance Stroll. 

The late pause, after Chinese driver Zhou Guanyu lost control of his Sauber, interrupted some teams’ plans to switch to soft tyres in the closing minutes, leading to an unrepresentative outcome.

Three-time world champion Max Verstappen, who did not run on softs, complained about his Red Bull car as he struggled in 11th place and 0.815secs off the pace. 

“It is so loose on the bumps, any correction with engine braking or brake bias just makes it worse,” said Verstappen, who remarked on Thursday he envisaged a tough weekend labelling the track “one of the more difficult” for the team.

McLaren introduced a striking yellow and green livery as a tribute to the late Ayrton Senna, one of many changes as the teams switched from the sweeping corners of Imola last weekend to the narrow and unforgiving barriers of Monaco. 

On an overcast day with rain threatening, Hamilton led the cars out of the pit-lane to start the session, most teams opting for hards. 

Piastri set the early pace ahead of Verstappen whose father Jos was present for the first time since Red Bull’s early season off the track difficulties.

Norris soon took over for McLaren with a lap in 1:15.294 before Leclerc gained the initiative in 1:14.238.

Norris and Leclerc continued swapping fastest laps, the Monegasque showing his form on the track that was his childhood bus-run to school. 

After 30 minutes of the hour Verstappen and then Hamilton moved up to second before Russell went top on softs ahead of his Mercedes team-mate.

Hamilton then improved to 1:12.169 to go top before Zhou Guanyu crashed to trigger a red flag. 

The Chinese driver clipped a barrier and lost part of his front wing which was then collected by Leclerc’s Ferrari as he ran over the debris. 

This forced Leclerc to pit for repairs as light rain fell and on resumption Perez pitted with a puncture.

Lewis Hamilton said he was grateful for a moment of reflection on Thursday morning when he recalled his first visits to Monaco and the realisation of his teenage dreams. Speaking ahead of this weekend’s 81st running of the Monaco Grand Prix, the seven-time world champion said he had a striking sense of the history and majesty of the event that he first attended as a 13-year-old as he arrived in the famous harbour driving through the tunnel.

“I really felt the place and its history and as I came through the tunnel I remembered Ayrton (Senna) from watching it on TV as a kid and that it felt surreal to think that I am now one of the 22 to do it – and that I have been doing it for so long,” he said.

“It was my dream when I was 13 and I came here the first time and I thought this is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been and I want to live here.”

Hamilton not only realised that dream, winning the Monaco Grand Prix three times – in 2008, 2016 and 2019 – but by buying an apartment and living in the Mediterranean principality.

“I raced here the first time when I was 18 or 19,” he added.

“In Formula Three. And it was epic. I had a rented scooter and I was running around town and I went up to Eze and it was really epic for me. And then, I got to go on the grid and it was crazy because I had only ever seen Martin Brundle there.

“It’s a crazy place, a special place, it’s the pearl of our sport and the second smallest country in the world.”

Hamilton’s golden recollection of his early experiences in Monaco may not have coincided with W. Somerset Maugham’s description of the principality as “a sunny place for shady people”, but it was heart-felt.

The Mercedes driver, who is set to join Ferrari next year, has not allowed the demise of his team’s form to diminish his pleasure from driving and suggested he will relish the action again this weekend.

Now 39, he takes a more mellowed view of his racing than he did as a forceful younger man.

“We don’t have any upgrades this weekend,” he said. “The package was spread over the last two races. We have our highest downforce package and an evolved wing, but otherwise I don’t know where we’ll be.

“But I am more excited than I have been with the previous two cars. They were not so great. This one is a real work in progress and it’s much better than last year.

“There are so many things to consider – how high or low to run, the balance, weight distribution, cambers and tows. It is one thing to practice in the ‘sim’, but it is only at the track that you discover the issues you may or may not have.

“I hope we just hit the ground running and we don’t look back, but that’s not been the case for the last two years. But this car is more predictable and it is nice to drive. It’s not perfect, but we are going in the right direction.”

Three-time world champion and series leader Max Verstappen returned to winning ways on Sunday when he resisted a late charge by Lando Norris to take a dramatic victory for Red Bull at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. After being beaten in Miami, where friend and rival Norris claimed his maiden victory for McLaren, the Dutchman resisted him to come home 0.725 seconds ahead of the Briton who mounted a rousing final attack in vain. Charles Leclerc finished third for Ferrari ahead of Oscar Piastri in the second McLaren, Carlos Sainz in the second Ferrari and seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton and his Mercedes team-mate George Russell. 

Sergio Perez was eighth in the second Red Bull ahead of Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll and RB’s Yuki Tsunoda, in his Faenza-based team’s home event. 

Verstappen’s hard-earned win, after a difficult two days of practice, was his third at Imola, his fifth of the season and the 59th of his career, lifting him 48 points clear of Leclerc in the drivers’ title race. 

“We did a great race considering how it started and I had to work hard for that,” admitted Verstappen. “The whole race I pushed flat out to make a gap. 

“I felt quite strong on mediums, but on the hards, it was more difficult to manage and the last 15 laps I had no grip and I was sliding a lot. 

“I could see him behind me and I am super-happy to win here today.”

Norris said: “It’s frustrating! This feels more painful. It hurts me to say so, but with one or two more laps I think I’d have had him.”

Leclerc, whose podium finish for Ferrari in their heartland was acclaimed by masses of tifosi, said: “At least a podium! Of course, I wanted to win and I didn’t make it.

“They were incredibly quick at the end, but it’s looking good for us for the rest of the season. Monaco is going to be special.”

‘I’m pushing’

On a very warm Spring day all but Perez began on medium tyres, the Mexican choosing ‘hards’ to go long after a desultory qualifying left him 11th on the grid. 

Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso started from the pitlane after late suspension changes while Piastri was fifth, penalised from second for obstructing Kevin Magnussen on Saturday. 

As the lights went out, Verstappen surged clear while behind him Hamilton and Perez made up places during an incident-free opening as the world champion built an early advantage. 

Verstappen’s relentless pace took him five seconds clear by lap 16 ahead of Norris who led Leclerc by 1.3 with Sainz fourth, resisting Piastri. The Mercedes’ pair were sixth and seventh ahead of Perez.

Russell was the first of the leading group to pit after 21 laps, having complained his tyres were shot.

Norris was next in on lap 23, coming out behind Perez, followed by Piastri and then Verstappen, on lap 25, shortly after the Dutchman was shown a black-and-white flag for exceeding track limits. One more offence would bring a five second penalty. 

Verstappen re-joined fourth behind Leclerc, Sainz and Hamilton with Norris behind him, having passed Perez, before Leclerc pitted and Sainz inherited the lead briefly before pitting with Hamilton, who had run off at Acque Minerali. 

This left Verstappen back on top at half-distance with a lead of 6.2 seconds on Norris, Leclerc and Piastri.

Having eased off to preserve his tyres, Norris mounted a late charge and trimmed Verstappen’s lead on successive laps to put him under intense pressure.

With seven laps to go, he was only two seconds adrift and closing in. 

“I’m pushing as hard as I can mate,” said Norris on team radio when encouraged to hunt a second victory.

Hard as he tried to turn the screw Verstappen scraped home on the day Formula One remembered the late great Ayrton Senna, who died in a crash at the circuit three decades ago.