Rate the Race and Driver of the Weekend, Round 10, Silverstone, British GP 201

Mean Reader Score 6.67

Scoring 6.79 last year, Silverstone has  scored slightly lower in 2017. Last race was a bit of a procession, starting behind the safety car under ‘wet’ conditions, with Lewis leading from start to finish  and reducing his rival’s (Rosberg) WDC points lead to boot. This year’s race had a similar outcome but was far more dramatic. Palmer failed to start, the Force India brakes  were smoking after the addition of an extra formation lap and Vettel was on fire (literally: well his car was.)  Vettel lost a place to Max Verstappen at the start and try as he might, couldn’t get it back. This provided some great wheel to wheel, bumper car racing (several times.) A mixture of a well executed undercut and some bungling in the Red Bull pit saw Vettle move ahead of Verstappen. He then went head to head with Bottas towards the end of the race and finally, along with team mate Raikkonen gave us one of the most breathtaking finishes of the season so far. The delamination of the front left wheel of both Ferraris initiated unscheduled pit stops on the last lap (Vettel) and penultimate lap, (Raikkonen.)  Vettel dropped back to P7, securing only six points. Winning the race by a country mile, Hamilton scored 25, reducing Vettel’s WDC lead to a single point.  So, who won our Driver of the Weekend? Yup, you guessed it, (well voted for actually) it was ……………………

Driver of the Weekend: Daniel Ricciardo  35.42% of reader vote

Ricciardo went into the qualifying knowing he would take a five place grid penalty due to an unscheduled gearbox change (only to be outdone by Alonso’s 30) but due to a turbo failure in Q1, didn’t set a time and was out quicker than expected. Not to be deterred, come race day he ducked and dived his way  to the front(ish) of the field, cutting a swathe through the back markers and eventually catching his team mate to finish fifth overall. Not bad for a P19 start. He’s now leading team mate Verstappen 2:1 in our Driver of the Weekend polls, as well as being fourth in the F1 WDC standings.  Well done Daniel!!

@F1Theaj