They say luck levels out over the course of a season, but no-one could have expected things to even up quite this quickly.
George Russell has complained — not without justification — that his championship campaign was being undone by misfortune after he slipped to 68 points adrift at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Just three grands prix later and his deficit has been slashed by 43 points — almost entirely thanks to good luck.
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Title leader Andrea Kimi Antonelli has had two non-scoring finishes from the last three grands prix due entirely to unreliability.
The margin between the Mercedes teammates is now just 25 points — an improbable scenario a month ago.
But, crucially for the narrative of the season, it’s 25 points with an even ledger.
Russell’s two scoreless races — in Canada and Monaco — have been neutralised. What’s left is what the two drivers have scored in straight fights.
If anything, luck has now swung decisive towards him.
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His retirement in Canada was from the lead but with Antonelli looking like the quicker driver behind him. His Monaco disaster was on a weekend he lacked pace and would’ve finished off the podium.
Antonelli retired from second place in Barcelona and from victory contention in Silverstone, both times ahead of Russell.
That is, the points swing towards Russell has been more significant than it ever had been against him.
To be fair, the Briton recognised the 25-point gap was indicative of a lack of performance on his part.
“If I’m being brutally honest, I’m not going to fight for the championship if performances continue like that,” he said. “I’m not coming away from this weekend satisfied.
“I’ll take the result. I was probably more satisfied leaving Canada when I broke down from the lead than I am today standing P2, just because I probably deserve the win in Canada and today I didn’t deserve to stand where I stood.”
Antonelli, meanwhile, is left to lick the most bizarre of wounds: a failed wheel shield.
The rarely mentioned part covers the inside wheel rim — sometimes known as the cake tin — and failed on Antonelli’s car over a kerb.
The unusualness of the breakage meant it took the team precious laps — and two pit stops — to solve it, though the difficulty Antonelli still had driving the car afterwards suggests it did more damage or was indicative of a bigger problem.
Even so, he should have been in a position to walk away with two consolation points, but then the stewards slapped him with a five-second penalty for track limits — that is, for driving off the road when his car was refusing to take the corners.
And then that penalty had to be served behind a safety car that refused to come ahead of the final lap, ensuring he dropped well out of the points.
“It’s the rules, but I find it a bit [unfair],” he lamented. “It’s okay if you get track limits by going off and gaining, but I couldn’t keep the car on track in that instant. I was trying my best to stay on track, but I just couldn’t.”
Remarkably, however, that wasn’t even the most contentious application of the rules for the day.
WHY WASN’T THE RACE RESTARTED?
It’s perhaps the most famous paragraph in the dense Formula 1 rule book.
Under the heading ‘Safety Car’, article B5.13.5b makes clear how the race should resume from behind a safety car when lapped cars have been allowed to power ahead and unlap themselves.
“Unless the Race Director considers the presence of the Safety Car remains necessary, once the message ‘LAPPED CARS MAY NOW OVERTAKE’ has been sent to all Competitors in accordance with Article B5.13.4c, the Safety Car will return to the pits at the end of the following lap.”
This, of course, is the famous rule at the heart of Formula 1’s most controversial day: the 2021 championship-deciding Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
F1’s most infamous rule strikes again.Source: AFP
In 2021 the regulation was ignored as a result of human error, allowing the race to get back underway one lap early, which enabled Max Verstappen to make his championship-winning overtake on Lewis Hamilton after having stopped for fresh tyres.
Remarkably, by having the rule applied in full this weekend, Hamilton found himself hurt again.
In 2021 he didn’t pit behind the safety car because he would have lost position to Verstappen, who surely would have stayed out — and Mercedes suspected the race wouldn’t restart.
At the weekend Ferrari allowed Hamilton to lose a place to Russell, apparently believing the race would definitely get back underway — either that, or the team didn’t realise he was at risk of losing position.
The race didn’t restart, and Hamilton didn’t win back the place — exactly what Mercedes wanted to avoid in 2021.
Allowing lapped cars to unlap themselves ensures that drivers on the lead lap can battle without interference when the race resumes. Enforcing an extra lap behind the safety means that those lapped cars can either join the back of the pack or at least be far enough up the road that they’re not immediately recaught.
The safety car was triggered on lap 48. The incident was cleared on lap 50. Lapped cars were allowed to pass on lap 51.
The British Grand Prix runs for only 52 laps, therefore it had to end behind the safety car — and yet in an alarming re-enactment of Abu Dhabi 2021, race control notified that racing would resume immediately.
The FIA later said it was a software error, and the race director subsequently redeployed the safety car to ensure this prickly rule was followed.
But the situation raises some questions about perhaps the sport’s most infamous rule.
Should drivers have been allowed to unlap themselves given it meant the race wouldn’t be resumed? There’s an agreement between the sport, the FIA and the teams that races should finish under green flags, and the regulations contain a provision that would allow the race director to prevent lapped cars from overtaking and therefore restart the race faster.
Was the rule forgotten or misunderstood? Given its history, it would be remarkable if a mistake were made here.
Or was there a delay in communicating with the lapped cars? The regulation specifically states the timing of the message is decisive in the restart procedure, and replays suggest Piastri — the first lapped car — was told he could pass roughly as he crossed the finishing line at the end of lap 50.
By then Leclerc was already well on his way on lap 51, but had Piastri’s position been counted, could the race have been restarted as perhaps planned? Or was his position on the track underestimated?
A final question: should the rule be changed to allow a faster restart when there are so few laps remaining to avoid this scenario entirely?
Whatever the case, the result is that the record 175,000 spectators were denied a racing finish to the grand prix.
LECLERC BIG WIN RETURNS HIM TO THE FRONT
Charles Leclerc was relieved not to have to defend his lead in a safety car restart. Given the chaos around the start of the grand prix and the sprint this weekend, you can understand why he would have felt that way.
It in no way cheapens what was an outstanding performance, however.
Even if the Ferrari driver likely wouldn’t have won the grand prix without Antonelli’s failure — the Italian seemed certain to catch and pass him for the lead with a handful of laps remaining — Leclerc’s return to form is significant for a driver who has looked down and out for weeks.
“To win after a few weekends that have been particularly difficult, all the work that we have put into trying to get the feeling back in the car — I felt like I found something yesterday between the sprint race and qualifying, but I had to confirm that today, and today the feeling was back where it needs to be,” he said. “I’m so incredibly happy.
NORTHAMPTON, ENGLAND – JULY 05: Race winner Charles Leclerc of Monaco and Scuderia Ferrari sprays Champagne on the podium.Source: Getty Images
It bears repeating how poor Leclerc’s form has been, particularly as Hamilton has surged.
“After Monaco, the feeling wasn’t there — I crashed in Q3, then in the race we had an issue and it ended our race.
“Then Saturday in Barcelona the feeling was good but then I crashed again, so that was very difficult mentally, and then on Sunday we had an issue with the car.
“Austria wasn’t so great, but here we managed to put everything together.
“I really hope I can keep that momentum going forward. A huge thankyou to the team for having worked so hard.”
Speaking after qualifying, Leclerc admitted he had got himself caught up trying to follow Hamilton but has returned to form by recommitting himself to his own way of working.
“I had two approaches recently,” he said. “There was either the one where I just changed my driving style completely and just try and reproduce what Lewis is doing, because clearly it’s working, or keep pushing in my direction and trying to find a way around where the car just fits my driving a little bit better.
“I went towards the second route, which was to stick with what I know worked in the past and try to find a way around with the car and with every tool that I have available inside the car … and it definitely worked out.”
If this really is a return to form, it might have come just in time. Not only is Ferrari competitive — and if it can be quick in Silverstone, it can certainly be quick at slower or more technical circuits — but with Antonelli failing to score, he’s now 71 points off the championship lead.
Perhaps more important, however, is that Ferrari is now just 78 points off Mercedes’s lead in the constructors championship — a more achievable proposition.
With at least 13 races remaining, the championship looks more open by the weekend.
VERSTAPPEN BLASTS TEAM OVER ‘DANGEROUS’ CAR
“F*** this car. Unbelievable. F*** this.”
It was quite the appraisal from Max Verstappen, who spun out of the race four laps from the finish and ended his afternoon beached in the gravel at Stowe — and just one week after almost winning the Austrian Grand Prix.
The crash looked highly unusual for that corner — and it turns out it was.
Rather than a driver error, it was another rear wing failure, similar to what spat Verstappen into the wall in qualifying in Austria last weekend.
‘F*** THIS’ Verstappen rages after crash | 01:09
“The rear wing just doesn’t fully close,” he revealed to Sky Sports. “I saw the analysis. It looks like it closes, but it doesn’t; it closes, but it’s open, and you lose a lot of rear downforce. That’s why the car just spins off the track.”
Verstappen has never been afraid to speak his mind, but then he upped the ante.
“When it happens one time, it can happen — faults happen,” he said. “Two times, it’s getting very dangerous to me, because you can really hurt yourself at these high-speed corners when it happens.”
A fan of Red Bull Racing’s Dutch driver Max Verstappen sits on the track following the Formula One British Grand Prix at the Silverstone motor racing circuit in Silverstone, central England, on July 5, 2026. (Photo by Ben STANSALL / AFP)Source: AFP
Verstappen had been running third at the time of the crash but said it was a position the car didn’t deserve because other drivers were slapped with penalties, punctures or failures.
“We got lucky,” he said. “It would have been a podium that we didn’t deserve on pace, because on the hard tyres we were nowhere. I had really no grip. I was surprised. We were just simply too slow.
“The balance was so far off for me the whole weekend and in the race again that I can’t push at all. At least you hope even if you have a difficult weekend balance-wise, you finish the race, but we can’t even do that all the time.
“It’s just another painful weekend.”
These aren’t the words of a happy driver. They don’t even sound like the words of a driver interested in extending his time with the team.
It’s expected Verstappen will get access to an exit clause on his contract by the end of the month. What happens next will be fascinating.
McLAREN ‘WASN’T VERY NICE IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER’
Verstappen has been connected to a seat at McLaren next season despite both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri being under contract.
That aside, on paper there’s perhaps a logic to switching to the defending constructors champion and the team that deposed Red Bull Racing.
In reality, though, McLaren car was less competitive than Verstappen’s current machine.
McLaren was slower in qualifying and slower in the race.
NORTHAMPTON, ENGLAND – JULY 05: Eleventh placed Oscar Piastri of Australia and McLaren in parc ferme during the F1 Grand Prix of Great Britain at Silverstone Circuit on July 05, 2026 in Northampton, England. (Photo by Peter Fox/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images
Piastri’s first-lap incident, costing him his front wing, meant his scoreless result was also meaningless — though if you were Verstappen, you’d surely be wondering why it took the team two whole laps to identify Piastri’s front wing was broken — and though Norris finished fourth, the Briton admitted even that wasn’t on pace.
“Considering how not nice it’s felt out there, P4 and P3 in the sprint this weekend is quite remarkable, honestly,” Norris said. “We were lucky today.
“The car just wasn’t very nice in any way whatsoever today. We have a lot to improve.
“The pace to get [the results] was really, really not good. We need to take a big step forward.”
McLaren has teased that it will bring a major upgrade to Hungary, two rounds from now, that could salvage its season.
But in the context of Verstappen’s unhappiness and his future, it’s hard to mount a case for McLaren being his top destination right now.