Winners and Losers from 2024 F1 British Grand Prix

Whilst most of the major headlines from the British Grand Prix will focus on Lewis Hamilton's return to the top step of the podium, there were plenty of other major storylines unfolding. 

In the end, it was a Hamilton-Max Verstappen-Lando Norris podium with all three believing they had a legitimate shot at the victory. 

But we start our round-up of Winners and Losers with the home favourite.

Winner - Lewis Hamilton

On the grid, Jeremy Clarkson told Martin Brundle on his grid-walk that the forecast wet conditions would be a chance for the "old boys" to have a shot at winning. 

At the final stops, both Hamilton and Norris went onto the softs for the 13 and 12 laps each had remaining on a tyre that was not favourable for long stints. 

This is where the two diverged. Whilst Hamilton had a comfortable three-second buffer out front, Norris was forced to use up his tyres to try and attack Hamilton and defend from Verstappen. Check mate.

In reality, there was never any doubt as to who would win when Hamilton emerged in the lead and it was just a case of ticking off the laps for a driver who was emotional post-race as the burden of a 945-day-long win drought was finally lifted. 

Once upon a time, Hamilton going nearly two-and-a-half years without a win was unthinkable. 

But as Toto Wolff said post-race, it was a fairytale on his final Silverstone appearance for Mercedes. 

Iconic driver winning his final home grand prix for iconic team to end long win drought? It's almost the script for a Hollywood film....

Loser (of sorts) - George Russell

On the Mercedes flip-side, we have George Russell. 

From pole position, Russell had the race under control until lap 18 when the rain began to fall. 

Being the first across the increasingly wet track, Russell was forced to tiptoe and Hamilton came sailing past - before the McLarens got the pair of them. 

Hamilton's lap 18 pass was also crucial as it set Hamilton up for priority during the stops for the change to intermediate, meaning Russell had to double-stack. 

He was undercut by Verstappen who made the swap a lap earlier but the warning signs were already flashing as the water pressure fault that ultimately put him out on lap 34 made itself known. 

Russell felt he was riding a wave after bagging pole and is driving arguably at his best since joining Mercedes with two poles, two podiums and a win in the last four races. 

Whilst this was a bad ending to his race, he is morphing into the team leader role soon to be vacated by Hamilton.

Winner - Nico Hulkenberg

The star of the season so far.

In the upgraded Haas machine, Nico Hulkenberg once again banked sixth-place for the second successive race. 

The 16 points he alone has scored in Austria and Great Britain was more than Haas scored combined in the previous 35 races combined. 

This was exactly why Hulkenberg was signed by Haas, to be a reliable points-scoring machine in the midfield, extracting the maximum from the package, something the patchy Kevin Magnussen is unable to do. 

Hulkenberg out-qualified both works Ferrari cars on merit and also held off the chasing Lance Stroll in the Aston Martin late on to snare another eight points for the team. 

The German's consistency will be a big miss for the team in 2025, and any doubts about his return at the start of 2023 have been firmly dismissed. 

Loser - McLaren

McLaren is a team currently undergoing a period of growing pains as it learns to adjust to racing consistently and fiercely at the head of the field. 

It is going to make mistakes on strategy, but this does not make them any less painful when the faux pas are committed.

Since Miami, it has arguably had the fastest car, but fumbled wins in Canada, Spain, Austria and now Britain through a mix of poor strategy and collisions. 

This time, both drivers were nubbed by the strategy, with Oscar Piastri being done by the decision not to double-stack for the change to intermediates, and Norris impacted by the decision for softs instead of the fresh mediums at the change-back.

These mistakes are all part of a team growing - but as it targets the Constructors' Championship given Red Bull is fighting with one hand behind its back, the mistakes must be learnt from and addressed quickly.

Winner - Lance Stroll

Aston Martin's form, after an encouraging start to the season, has nosedived in recent races as the AMR24 struggled for pace and the team understanding. 

But minor upgrades and cooler temperatures aided Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso as they banked seventh and eighth. It follows on from a six-seven in similar conditions in Canada, giving rise to the theory the car is stronger when the mercury drops.

Of the two, as has been the case over recent races as Alonso finds himself in a funk, Stroll was the better of the two drivers. 

He out-qualified Alonso and out-raced him, although if we're being picky, he should have beaten Hulkenberg for sixth, but was less than a second behind in typical Stroll conditions.

He has received a fair amount of criticism at times over the past year, and this result certainly does not go far towards undoing that justified criticism, but if you are to criticise someone for a poor job, then it is only fair to do so when they excel. 

Loser - Sergio Perez

Oh dear, just when you think it couldn't get any worse. 

This was arguably Sergio Perez's worst weekend of the season, just when he needed an improvement in form.

First he was benched for FP1 for Isack Hadjar to fulfill the required rookie session in his RB20, before an encouraging FP2.

But on his out-lap in qualifying on the slick tyres, he spun off at Copse and beached the car. Minutes later, Verstappen did the exact same thing and was just about able to hold it - although he destroyed the floor as he did so. Fine margins. 

In the race, Perez was making good progress on the hard tyres, before pitting on lap 20 for intermediates, seven laps before the leaders.

His inters were basically fried by the time the rain actually came and snookered his chances of a points finish. 

Fair enough that didn't work, but he was passed late on for 16th place by Esteban Ocon, who had also gone early on inters, but bailed in the Alpine - and who let his team know just how unhappy he was with the strategy. 

Charles Leclerc was also on this strategy as two of the fastest cars were made to look like also-ruans and midfield fodder.

Perez is now in a serious fight to retain his Red Bull seat, with contract clauses requiring him to be within 100 points and five places of Verstappen by the end of the Belgian Grand Prix.

With two races to go, he is 137 points behind and sixth in the standings, with Russell and Hamilton both now within eight points.