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Max Verstappen won the British Grand Prix to extend his Formula 1 lead to 99 points on Sunday as Red Bull’s unbeaten streak equaled McLaren’s 1988 record of 11 consecutive victories.
McLaren’s Lando Norris finished second in front of a massive crowd of 160,000 at home in Silverstone, while Briton and seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton finished third for Mercedes after starting seventh.
“Eleven in a row. Eleven in a row,” Verstappen said on team radio after winning his sixth in a row and eighth in 10 races this season.
The two-time world champion took the fastest lap bonus point as well to take nearly four race wins ahead of his closest rival and teammate Sergio Perez, who finished sixth after starting 15th.
The win was Red Bull’s first at Silverstone since Australian Mark Webber in 2012, and Norris’ first podium for McLaren in their home race since Hamilton finished second in 2010.
Australian Oscar Piastri finished fourth for McLaren, and his hopes of reaching the first podium were dashed by a late safety car, while Britain’s George Russell finished fifth for Mercedes after a long first with soft tires and Fernando Alonso in seventh for Aston Martin.
Alex Albon continued Williams’ recent strong showing in eighth, ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and last year’s winner Carlos Sainz.
Ferrari’s underwhelming race marked a full year since the sport’s oldest and most successful team won.
Steering wheel
Verstappen started on pole position but suffered a rollover when the lights went out and Norris, along with the front row, seized the lead.
The Briton held the lead until lap five when he passed Verstappen with the help of DRS (drag reduction) at the end of the Wellington Straight.
Red Bull didn’t disappear into the distance, with Norris staying within a second of Verstappen five laps later and the McLaren drivers agreeing to hold a position for the team’s benefit and manage the tyres.
Norris took the square flag just 3.798 seconds behind the Dutch driver.
“I did what I could. I brought the fight to Max for as long as possible,” said Norris, whose team won 11 consecutive races in 1988 with triple champion Ayrton Senna and Frenchman Alain Prost.
The current Red Bull race started at the end of last year’s Abu Dhabi season and it might take some time before it finished.
The safety car, deployed from lap 33 to 38 after Haas driver Kevin Magnussen’s engine died and caught fire, rounded out the group with the top three getting a cheap pit stop before the final 14 laps of the race with the competitors on different tyres.
Norris, on the hards, and Hamilton, on the softs, went wheel to wheel – battling hard but fairly – until McLaren pulled away from the Mercedes driver at the finish by nearly three seconds.
“McLaren is a rocket ship. At high speed it was insane,” Hamilton said, in his 14th British Grand Prix podium appearance, over the team radio.
Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg and Perez joined on the eighth lap in a battle for 13th place, then the German warmed up to get a new front wing.
Alpine Esteban Ocon’s retirement was the first, with the Renault-owned team telling him it was over due to a hydraulic leak when he returned to the pits on lap 10.
His teammate Pierre Gasly also retired on a dismal afternoon for the Renault-owned outfit.
Organizers said 160,000 fans attended Sunday’s race and a British Grand Prix record 480,000 turned out over the course of the event.
They, too, can breathe a sigh of relief after the feared outcry by Stop the Oil activists, who invaded the track last year, failed to materialize.
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