F1 LIVE: Lewis Hamilton targets Max Verstappen for 2021 Silverstone crash after praising Charles Leclerc

Max Verstappen stressed the importance of scoring points after a difficult day in the office at Sunday’s British Grand Prix.

The championship leader won the race early on before a flat tire limited his chances, and damage to the bodywork also hampered his performance at Silverstone.

Despite his accident, the world champion took six points with his championship lead going into the Austrian Grand Prix this weekend, now 34 points from teammate Sergio Perez.

“An unlucky afternoon,” he said on Instagram. “We were on it from the start of the race, after we got off to a great start on both occasions. “After collecting debris, my floor was badly damaged and we struggled throughout the race. I gave everything for P7 and collected important points. We will keep pushing to come back stronger at our home race in Austria, we can’t wait to see the support of the Orange Army.”

A combination of crashes, Safety Cars, problems with other vehicles and some fantastic late overtakes saw the seven-time champion finish on the podium for the first time since the opening round of the 2022 season in Bahrain, after a campaign of battle with porpoises and control issues in the new Mercedes car.

But on a day when about 120,000 fans attended race day on silverstoneHamilton – who briefly led the race – praised the opportunity as F1 at its best and hoped the performance could provide a platform for improvement for the rest of the year.

“We’ve had the greatest show in history, thank you for this incredible support – we don’t see this anywhere else in the world,” he said after the race.

Mick Schumacher was relieved to have silenced his critics after scoring the first points of his Formula 1 career at the British Grand Prix.

The Haas driver was involved in a battle with Max Verstappen for seventh place in the closing stages, but nevertheless crossed the line in eighth for the moment he had been waiting for in the 32nd F1 race of his career.

“I think in general we are very happy to come back from P19,” he told F1.com.

“I said we had the speed to move forward and we certainly showed that today.

“It’s great for the team, we have the double score in the points. That is of course very helpful to the constructors, but I also think it’s great to get those questions away from the media and focus on what’s really important and that’s the racing and the driving itself. †

The Chinese rookie driver, who entered only his 10th Formula 1 race, was turned upside down after a collision with George Russell at turn one of the first lap and flew into the fence past the tire barrier.

The marshals and medical team at the scene responded quickly, with Zhou trapped in the car and getting him out before placing the 23-year-old on a stretcher.

Zhou tweeted shortly afterwards that the halo device – introduced in 2018 to protect the drivers in the cockpit – saved his life and emphasized his gratitude to the silverstone staff for their ‘fantastic’ work.

He tweeted: “Hello everyone! Thank you all for the sweet messages. I want to thank the marshals and the medical team at Silverstone, they were really fantastic. I’m more excited than ever to get back on track, see you in Austria!”

Guanyu Zhou’s harrowing crash at the start of Sunday’s British Grand Prix was another win for Jean Todt and the FIA ​​technicians who heeded drivers’ concerns in 2015.

The likes of Jenson Button and Sebastian Vettel pushed for mandatory head protection, especially after Justin Wilson’s death in IndyCar that year and Henry Surtees’ sad passage in an F2 race in 2009. Jules Bianchi also lost his battle in July 2015 after his horrific crash at the Japanese Grand Prix nine months earlier.

But there have been no fatalities in Formula 1 in the years since. to be.

While Toto Wolff remarked about the halo in the 2018 build: “If you give me a chainsaw, I’d take it off”, a few months later we saw the first instance of its very authentic functionality amid the propulsive speed and powers of a Formula 1 car.

Lewis Hamilton targeted Max Verstappen after Sunday’s British Grand Prix, while praising ‘sensible’ Charles Leclerc after the Mercedes-Ferrari battle in the closing stages.

Red Bull’s Verstappen memorably crashed into the Copse corner on the opening lap of last year’s race after tangling with Hamilton, who won the race despite a 10-second penalty.

But in Sunday’s dramatic Grand Prix at Silverstone, Leclerc and Hamilton battled it out superbly and honestly through the same corner and seven-time world champion Hamilton couldn’t help but refer to last year when he praised the Monégasque driver.

“Charles did a great job. What a great fight,” Hamilton told Sky F1.

“Very sensible driver and clearly very different from what we experienced last year. In Copse, for example, the two of us went through it without any problems. What a struggle.”

The seven-time world champion led the race after failing to pit on the first lap after the restart and was comfortable on medium tyres.

But when Mercedes brought Hamilton in on lap 33, the Silver Arrows put the Briton on the safer hard compound instead of the faster but less durable soft tires to oversee the remaining 19 laps of the race. However, he returned to the pits due to a late safety car.

Stay here for all the latest news in the world of F1, as after all the drama at Silverstone we start to look ahead to Austria this weekend…

The protesters, from the Just Stop Oil activist group, sat down on the Wellington straight on lap one, with the race red flagged just before the cars reached the group following Guanyu Zhou’s crash seconds earlier at Abbey.

“I think there’s been some talk about it, I think everyone is free to have their own opinion about it,” said four-time world champion Vettel after the race.

Lewis Hamilton says he “loves people fighting for the planet” after seven people were arrested following an invasion of the track at the start of the British Grand Prix – later adding that such protests “must be done safely”.

With the race immediately red-flagged after Guanyu Zhou’s heavy crash at Abbey and cars headed for the pits, protesters broke up the track on the Wellington Straight before sitting down.

Hamilton, who was told only about the focus of the protest at the post-race press conference and unaware of the method chosen, backed their cause – with those taking to the track wearing T-shirts protesting global oil consumption.

After originally “inciting the protesters,” Hamilton later explained: “I didn’t know what the protest was for and I just now found out.”