The Glorious History and Thrilling Moments of the British Grand Prix
2023 British F1 GP Facts & Figures
Sunday’s 2023 British Grand Prix will be the 74th British Grand Prix since the creation of the Formula 1 World Championship of Drivers. The event is one of the most iconic in the Formula 1 world and has been part of each championship since 1950, when Silverstone hosted the first-ever F1 race.
British drivers lead the table in terms of the World Champions by country, with 10 racers winning 20 titles for the UK. Multiple World Champions are British, such as Sir Lewis Hamilton, Sir Jackie Stewart, and Jim Clark. It is, therefore, not a surprise to see Hamilton and Clark as the most successful competitors in the British Grand Prix.
Sir Lewis won his home Grand Prix a record eight times, while Clark did it five times. Nigel Mansell —the 1992 F1 champion— (4), Sir Stirling Moss (2), three-time champion Jackie Stewart (2), and David Coulthard (2) are the other British drivers to win at home multiple times.
Before the inception of the World Championship, the British Grand Prix was held four times. The first two British Grand Prix occurred in 1926 under the regulations of the AIACR World Manufacturers’ Championship. French drivers Robert Sénéchal and Louis Wagner won the first race after a 463-kilometer-long event at Brooklands, while Robert Benoist won in 1927 after taking 125 laps at the same 4.21-kilometer circuit of Brooklands.
The other two non-championship British Grands Prix were held in 1948 and 1949 at Silverstone, both won by Maserati drivers: Italian Luigi Villoresi and Swiss driver Emmanuel de Graffenried.The British Grand Prix has been held at Brooklands, Silverstone, Aintree, and Brands Hatch with only the last three circuits hosting World Championship races. Aintree hosted the 1955, 1957, 1959, 1961, and 1962 editions of the British GP, while Brands Hatch hosted 12 races between 1964 and 1986, alternating with Silverstone, which has hosted the event uninterruptedly since 1987.
Silverstone Track Info
Silverstone received the first-ever Formula 1 race on 13 May 1950 and will be hosting its 57th British Grand Prix on Sunday (the track also held the 2020 70th Anniversary GP).
The track’s nature has always been the same: a power track with sweeping corners which demand a lot of bravery from the drivers. Though the layout has been changed quite significantly since the first time this former World War II Royal Airforce Station received a Grand Prix, its essence remains.
The current layout, which has not had significant tweaks since 2011, is 5.891 km long and is constructed with 18 corners, with around 10 of those turns being high-speed turns.
The circuit’s current records were established in 2020. Hamilton’s Pole lap for the 2020 British GP is the current outright record (1:24.303 min) and Verstappen’s Fastest Lap during the 2020 British GP of 1:27.097 min is the official Fastest Lap.
The track was really unchanged from 1948 to 1990, with the exception of some tweaks to prevent some high speeds that were becoming a little too dangerous for the drivers. Still, the track is one of the most historic ones in the Grand Prix world and it maintains its most iconic sections such as Copse and the Maggotts-Becketts-Chapel section.
Most successful drivers and teams in F1's British Grand Prix
Amongst drivers, Hamilton is the most successful with eight victories and Ferrari leads McLaren in the teams’ standings, having won 16 races to the British team’s 14.
Legendary teams Ferrari and Williams both achieved their first-ever F1 win in a British GP event. Ferrari won in 1951 with José Froilán González and Williams did it with Clay Regazzoni in 1979.
Also, Williams’ achieved their 100th Grand Prix win in the 1997 British Grand Prix, with a victory for Jacques Villeneuve, the 1997 F1 champion.
Memorable scenes from F1's British Grand Prix
Of course, the British Grand Prix has given us amazing memories throughout Formula 1's rich history. From Giuseppe Farina’s win in the first-ever Grand Prix to the battle between the Silver Arrows of Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss in 1955. From Nigel Mansell beating his Williams "teammate" Nelson Piquet in 1987 after a beautiful dummy heading into Stowe to Michael Schumacher winning in 1998 by serving a drive-through penalty in the final lap or a man entering the track in 2003 with the cars flying by his side at unbelievable speeds, Silverstone has delivered lots of action.
Ayrton Senna getting a lift of Nigel Mansell on his Williams FW14B Renault (1992)
More recently, we saw Hamilton’s amazing victory in the wet 2008 race with more than a minute over the second-placed car and lapping every car which finished outside the podium. Also, in 2014 there was a fantastic wheel-to-wheel battle between two-time F1 World Champion Fernando Alonso and his Ferrari and four-time F1 champion Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull.
In 2020, the race was quite normal until the last few laps, as the Mercedes of Hamilton and Bottas suffered tyre failures while running 1-2. Hamilton managed to win the race with three wheels on his car as Max Verstappen was desperately trying to catch him right at the flag.
he 2021 race saw a huge first-lap crash between Hamilton and Max Verstappen, with the Dutchman ending up in the wall after both cars collided at Turn 9 (Copse). The pair had been battling throughout the entire first lap, with Hamilton trying to overtake but the Dutchman closing the door on every area of the circuit.
It was a legendary battle until the crash occurred, and there were mixed reactions about it, with many defining it as a racing incident and putting the blame on both drivers. The Red Bull camp went against Hamilton in full force, claiming bad sportsmanship from the seven-time championship and more.
Nevertheless, Carlos Sainz took his maiden F1 win in 2022 for Ferrari after a crazy race which included huge on-track battles between the likes of Sainz, Verstappen, Charles Leclerc, Sergio Pérez, and Hamilton, with the last two accompanying Sainz on the podium.
Will Silverstone deliver arguably the first true classic race of the 2023 Formula 1 World Championship season? Whether it is with Red Bull's record-equalling 11th straight victory (10th in 2023) or not, the event could definitely be a solid racing spectacle given how fantastic the Silverstone circuit is and how great some on-track battles have been in recent instances.
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