British GP Analysis: The final straw for AlphaTauri

A tamer Grand Prix compared to last years Silverstone race, but it was one with a shock podium from McLaren, showing the importance of upgrades as Aston Martin falls behind.

A New Chapter For McLaren?

McLaren added new upgrades to Lando Norris' car at the Canadian GP, leading Lando to finish P4. But this time around, Oscar Piastri got these upgrades too and made his way up to the top of the grid, the difference in the McLarens is night and day.

"That thing was rapid through the high-speed corners. Wow. I couldn't keep up, but we had a good little battle on the restart."- Lewis Hamilton on the unexpected McLaren's pace.

McLaren have been on a downward trajectory for years. The dominant area of McLaren MP4/4 and the MP4-23 was long gone.

With a one off win from Daniel Ricciardo in Monza breaking a nine year drought in wins for the team, many believed this could be the spark McLaren's need to light the fire in them again. A fire for wins.

However, this was not the case. It's been well documented that McLaren have technically struggled in modern day F1, which is the opposite to Ferrari who struggle strategy wise but excelled with engineering a good car.

"Well, tough year - obviously difficult and struggling with the pace all year and the reliability, so definitely a difficult season for us,"- Fernando Alonso on his dreadful return to McLaren in 2015. His four year return to the team never got any better either...

But with an unexpected P2 for Lando and P4 for Oscar, things are looking good for McLaren. The car finally has pace!

If this upgrade is as good as it showed last race weekend, McLaren could be competing in the top end of the mid-field.

I doubt we will see them fighting Max Verstappen for the championship (although we can dream of someone racing hard with Max) but I do see this as the beginning for McLaren to progress to the top grid.

Lets just hope this upgrade is one that will continue to push the McLaren into more competitive battles and points! So far so good, and I'm glad to finally be able to write something postive about the team.

When Your Competitors Finally Catch Up...

Aston Martin were the shock of the start of the season this year, they were ahead of the pack and was the team everyone was backing to bring it to Max Verstappen.

But the momentum has seemed to slow (or even came to a halt). We've gone from Fernando Alonso on the podium each week, with Stroll high up in the points, to fighting in the lower mid-field.

The British GP seemed to be the teams worst performance of the season so far (especially for Stroll). With Lance finishing P14 and Fernando P7, what went so wrong for the Silverstone based team?

To begin with, Lance Stroll had a very poor weekend. With him and Pierre Gasly colliding at Club Corner later in the race as tempers flared.

After racing wide at Vale, Stroll looked to miss the apex before hitting Gasly and destroying his suspension.

Stroll received a five-second penalty for the incident, but Gasly asked the officials to explain why no other harsher penalties/actions were given.

“ It's got to be crystal clear. We're racing at 350kph at the moment, which, you know, different situations. Last week we got penalised for stuff where we feel like we're not getting the warning properly."- Gasly on his frustating incident with Lance.

The Canadian also went off the track during lap 41 gaining a position he had to eventually give back, on top of receiving a black and white flag!

Not to mention his messy start as a stone had hit his finger in the first couple laps reducing his grip on the steering wheel... lets just say I'm sure Lance wanted this Grand Prix to end as soon as it started.

Fernando's drive on the other hand was more positive, having many battles on track with the likes of Hamilton during lap 6 and 7.

As well Fernando just being Fernando by toying with Pierre Gasly by holding him up behind. I don't think the Frenchman was happy with either of the Aston Martin Drivers.

So where can the team go from here? I think it's clear that every team has to continue to upgrade their cars throughout the season to get even the tiniest bit closer to Max Verstappen.

Aston Martin need to catch up with developing their car as other teams have caught up with where they were at the start of the season.

If they don't they could fall down the order and lose this build up of points. The team only took home six points this weekend.

A Weekend To Forget For Alpine

Alpine had high hopes this weekend's race, when Ryan Reynolds and his Hollywood colleagues Michael B Jordan and Rob McElhenney from three US based companies joined forces to buy a 24% stake in the Alpine team.

Although that would be the end of Alpines positives, as neither car completed the Grand Prix.

Esteban Ocon only reached Lap 10 having to retire the car due to a hydraulics leak issue. Alpine this season haven't had many retirements or reilabilty issues, so this was a bit of a shock.

“It’s a part we buy, and it’s a part that’s usually pretty robust and rarely fails. And it leaked. It leaked from an area of the pump where I think we adjust pressure on it.”- Otmar Szafnauer on Estebans Hydraulic leak.

Szafnauer described it as a "frustrating issue which we must resolve" because it is "the second time" this season that the hydraulics had failed on an Alpine car. At the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Ocon's teammate Pierre Gasly experienced a hydraulic leak that caused a fire.

The Enstone based team are expecting new upgrades before the summer break, those including that the new front wing will be optimised, over the next two upcoming races. On top of the Alpines floor being improved for Belgium.

“Our upgrades have worked this year and there's another significant one coming before the break,”- Szafnauer on the upcoming developments on the car.

Otmar seems confident that these tweaks to the car will improve the teams performance. But I guess we'll have to see if this confidence rings true.

Pierre Gaslys end to his race was quite the unlucky one, Lance Stroll slammed into Gaslys front left tyre while pushing the Frenchman off the track, leading to a broken suspension and him out of the race.

The only positive from situation is that this was a racing icident and not another reliability issue with the car this weekend.

Alpine are sixth in the constructors at the moment after having fallen behind McLaren, the team seem to be lacking in that extra bit of pace to brimg the car higher heights (similar to Aston Martins situation).

A Tale as old as time at Ferrari

Yet again, I am mentioning Carlos Sainz and his never ending frustration with Ferrari...

I think each race analysis I do I will be mentioning how hard done by the Spaniard is. Sainz took matters into his own hands and passed Leclerc during the British GP qualifying after the Spaniard was denied the opportunity to pass his teammate in Austria despite having the faster car.

“[During Silverstone] Sainz was having the back and forth and at one point, they weren’t really sure what their strategy was... he dropped like a stone really in the last 10 laps. He lost about three or four spots...ended up fighting with Leclerc and there were only three points that they picked up at the end.”- F1 Pundit Harry Benjamin on the BBC Chequered Flag Podcast.

This lack of foresight meant that Sainz lost the edge to Sergio Perez and Alex Albon all in a couple of corners, an event Ralf Schumacher called "embarrassing".

Also, he was dealing with another problem: a lack of protection for the SF-23 tyre, which proved to be particularly bad in this respect.

Ferrari is hyped up to be this pinnacle of motorsport (especially F1), but time and time again they lose out on points, wins and championships to indecisiveness and out right stupid reasons.

If Ferrari keep acting like this they will never have a World Championship under their belt again.

Qualifying P4 and P5 to end up P9 and P10 isn't right for any team. The team really need to push to get the most out of this season and focus on making sure next year doesn't bring those same mistakes.

Its a shame to look at last year where Carlos Sainz won his first ever race at the Silverstone Circuit, to now where the team is struggling so much.

Nyck De Vries Is OUT

I was about to submit this article to be released when the absolute bombshell was dropped in the F1 world. Nyck De Vries is no more at AlphaTauri, and Daniel Ricciardo is in.

I wrote a whole seperate article listing/ going through Ricciardos options for the next couple years and his unlikely return to F1 anytime soon, and I've been proven wrong.

Daniel Ricciardo had a Pirelli tyre test at Silverstone last Tuesday after the British Grand Prix with Red Bull.

Many expected this to just be an average test and nothing to come from it, but the Australian definitely impressed Christian Horner.

He impressed him so much so, that Horner called Helmut Marko an hour into the test to try to replace Nyck De Vries (at least according rumours).

Daniel was quick in this test showing that his lacklustre years at Renault and McLaren were merely circumstantial. The Honey Badger is back!

As much as I'm glad Ricciardo gets a second chance to really prove himself, I do feel bad for De Vries.

Yes, he hasn't had a good season at all (his highest finish being 12th at Monaco), landing himself last in the drivers standings...

I mentioned in my last Analysis that Nyck said its unobtainable to score points and the team shouldn't expect it from him.

I believe this attidue is a slight part that encouraged the decision for his swift departure.

Although the 'rumour' which loudly made its way round the paddock was that the Dutchman had until the summer break to make his mark to retain his seat. I think Nyck should've been given that opportunity.

But yet again this is the Red Bull way, take a look at the likes of Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon and Daniil Kvyat (Just to name a few) who were dumped as soon as they weren't on their A game.

But why Daniel Ricciardo? There are plenty young drivers in the Red Bull Junior Academy waiting for a call up to F1, such as Liam Lawson.

I believe Red Bull chose Daniel because they want to see if Yuki Tsunoda is the real deal.

There's always been a-lot of speculation throughout Tsunodas career about if he's worthy of his seat.

Of course him being Japanese and having a Japanese manufacturer like Honda for the team is one of the reasons he still retains his seat, but with Honda leaving the sport will Red Bull be keeping him?

This is really Tsunodas year to prove he is an all aorund great driver, as if he fails to do so I think he'll be another driver replaced this year...

I hope to seee Nyck excel in a different race catogory, like how he won the Formula E championship before.

Nyck is by all means not a bad driver! His talent and experience is clear to have been facctors to why he was wanted by the team in the first place, Maybe it was the car, maybe F1 just didn't fit with Nycks talents, or maybe he wasn't given long enough to prove himself.

The experience of Daniel Ricciardo will help the struggling team and hopefully bring them slowly up the grid fighting for points.