First win in 37 races, sealed at 120kph
Charles Leclerc ended a two-year wait for a victory at Silverstone, crossing the line behind the Safety Car after Max Verstappen crashed out and Kimi Antonelli’s title charge fell apart in the space of five laps.
Two years is a long time to wait for something you used to take for granted. Leclerc’s run without a win stretched back to Austin 2024, and by the time the paddock arrived at Silverstone it had swallowed crashes in Monaco and Barcelona, a quiet eighth in Austria, and a Ferrari that Leclerc himself wasn’t sure would suit a track built around long straights.
None of that mattered once the lights went out. Leclerc jumped pole-sitter Antonelli off the line, Hamilton followed him through into second, and by the time Antonelli had fought his way back to third the race up front already belonged to Ferrari. A single stop kept Leclerc in control through the middle stint, even as Antonelli — fresh off his first Sprint win and a home Saturday pole — began closing in on newer tyres.
Then it fell apart for Mercedes. Antonelli’s charge had shrunk the gap to just over three seconds when a left-side wheel shield began working loose, forcing two extra stops and a five-second penalty for running wide while he wrestled the car back into shape. He crossed the line ninth on the road and left the circuit fifteenth.
“The feeling was back where it needs to be.”
The finish did its best to take the shine off it. Verstappen, running third and already furious with Red Bull’s rear wing all weekend, spun into the gravel at Stowe with six laps to go — the second time in as many race weekends the same part had put him off the track. The Safety Car that followed never got the chance to send the field back to green: race control’s message board briefly showed the wrong instruction with two laps left, and by the time it was corrected there wasn’t enough race left to restart. Leclerc took the flag at barely more than walking pace, tyres stone cold, to a win that had looked settled an hour earlier anyway.
Russell inherited second by simply staying out of trouble, which was enough on its own to trim Antonelli’s championship lead to 25 points. Hamilton held onto third despite a five-second penalty for jumping the start and a post-race investigation for a yellow-flag infringement — the stewards settled for a reprimand rather than costing him the podium.