SILVERSTONE, UK: World championship leader Lewis Hamilton survived a tense last lap drama with a deflated and shredded tire to clinch a record seventh victory in Sunday’s British Grand Prix, claiming “my heart almost stopped.”
The six-time world champion led from lights to flag, and through two safety car interventions, before he suffered a front left tire failure on his final lap, leaving him to nurse his Mercedes home with second-place Max Verstappen in hot pursuit in his Red Bull. He finished 5.9 seconds behind.
The Dutchman had inherited second when Hamilton’s Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas, running comfortably in second for most of the contest, was hit by the same problem, his front-left delaminating and deflating on his penultimate lap.
The Finn limped back to the pits and finished pointless in 11th place while his rivals slowed to preserve their rubber, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc taking third place behind Verstappen ahead of Daniel Ricciardo of Renault and Lando Norris of McLaren.
Hamilton’s victory was the 87th of his career and moved him within four of Michael Schumacher’s record of 91.
Norris’s teammate Carlos Sainz was also a puncture victim in the closing laps of an exciting race that saw him fall from fourth to 13th.
Esteban Ocon finished sixth in the second Renault ahead of Pierre Gasly of Alpha Tauri, Alex Albon in the second Red Bull, Lance Stroll of Racing Point and four-time champion Sebastian Vettel, in his final season with Ferrari.
“In the last few laps, I started to back off and then on the last lap, it just deflated,” said Hamilton. “It was heart in the mouth. I nearly didn’t get round the last two corners. I was managing it and praying to get round and not be too slow. “I have definitely never experienced anything like that on the last lap and my heart definitely nearly stopped.” In the drivers championship, he leads with 88 points after four races, a lead of 30 ahead of the luckless Bottas.
“It was lucky and unlucky for us,” said Verstappen.
“The Mercedes were too quick. The tires didn’t look great with 10 laps to go and then Valtteri got a puncture and they boxed me to go for fastest lap ... Second is a
good result.” Leclerc said: “It was a tricky race — as soon as I heard Valtteri had a tire problem, I slowed down quite a lot. We took our opportunities.”
On another bright, but windy day, Hamilton overcame an imperfect start from his 91st pole position and record seventh in Britain.
He led as he pulled clear before a final corner collision, on the opening lap, involving Kevin Magnussen and the luckless Albon led to the first deployment of a safety car.
The Dane’s Haas car was on the outside of Albon’s Red Bull, with the Thai driver refusing to concede, when they crashed and Magnussen spun into a gravel trap, his front left wheel smashing off in the barriers. The stewards blamed Albon and gave him a five-second penalty. The safety car led the field for five laps before handing back to Hamilton who stayed in control until lap 13 when Daniil Kvyat suffered a right rear puncture and crashed heavily at Maggots, where both rear wheels smashed off his Alpha Tauri. He was unhurt, but a second safety car was required for five laps while debris was cleared.
This reduced the field to 17, Nico Hulkenberg having failed to start on his dramatic return, with Racing Point, as stand-in for coronavirus victim Sergio Perez.
The interruptions did nothing to halt Mercedes’ progress at the front, Hamilton and Bottas pulling clear of Verstappen with some ease.
By lap 30, the gap was eight seconds with Leclerc 14 seconds adrift.
Behind them, Grosjean and Sainz were engaged in a fierce battle for fifth, which saw the Frenchman weaving to resist at Brooklands. The Frenchman continued his aggressive approach, however, in a duel with Ricciardo.
It was duly noted by the stewards as more “moving under braking.” Ricciardo called it “sketchy.”
Hamilton wins seventh British Grand Prix on three wheels
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Hamilton wins seventh British Grand Prix on three wheels
‘Papaya’s not going anywhere’: How McLaren banished the wilderness years on and off the track
- On-track success of 2 constructors’ championships and Lando Norris’s title win matched by a rebrand attracting a new generation of fans to the British F1 team
ABU DHABI: It’s been just over a week since Lando Norris claimed his first Formula One championship title, but for McLaren’s growing army of supporters the party continues.
When the British driver crossed the finish line at Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina Circuit in third place to confirm his title victory, you could be forgiven for thinking the post-race celebrations had a familiar look to others in recent years at the season-closing Grand Prix in the UAE’s capital.
This time however, the celebrating fans were sporting the orange of McLaren’s distinctive “papaya” livery, rather than the orange of Max Verstappen’s native Netherlands.
The resurgence of the British team in recent years has been nothing short of remarkable. On the track, their overwhelming supremacy has been secured by a superior car and two gifted drivers in Norris and Australia’s Oscar Piastri. Off it, they deployed one of motor sport’s most successful rebranding campaigns, as a result of which McLaren’s main color now rivals Ferrari’s red as the most iconic in F1.
“You know, it was the fans’ choice to bring papaya back,” Matt Dennington, co-chief commercial officer at McLaren, told Arab News.
“Back in, I think it was 2016, we went out to our fans and it was an overwhelming ‘yes’ that they wanted to see our heritage come back into the team. It’s a key brand asset for us.”
Speaking during a “Live Your Fandom” event at Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, co-hosted with Velo, a team sponsor since 2019, he said: “For us, the fans are the lifeblood of our sport. We don’t go racing without them, and to be able to celebrate our fans and our partners together has been awesome.”
Norris’s success in Abu Dhabi was a crowning moment for the team, but the development on the track has been clear and dramatic for several years.
In 2017, the team finished a lowly ninth out of 10 in the constructors’ championship. Improvements to the car, particularly after switching to a Mercedes engine, helped the team move up to become a fixture in the “mid-field” F1 grid. Then, in 2024, came the giant leap forward as McLaren won the team title and then retained it this year.
In tandem with those successes, the commercial work that has taken place off the track has helped McLaren, in large part thanks to return of its papaya colors, develop one of the strongest brand identities in all of sports.
“Obviously, the on-track performance has been a great boost for that,” Dennington said. “You know, the other areas that have helped progress our fandom, and the sport, is the work that Liberty Media have done in the schedule.”
Liberty, an American mass media company, acquired Formula One Group from CVC Partners in 2017 for $4.4 billion. The popularity of the sport has skyrocketed since then thanks to huge engagement across media channels — including a certain Netflix show.
“More races, more races in the US, ‘Drive to Survive’ (on Netflix, and) we had the F1 movie,” Dennington said. “So there’s some great media platforms really driving the audience growth and the diversity of the audience.
“As a team, we’ve been pushing ourselves to be more sophisticated in the way in which we engage and communicate with our teams, but also looking at the partners we work with to give our fans the access to the McLaren brand and access to racing culture.”
The team’s portfolio now boasts more than 50 sponsors, among them Google, Mastercard and British American Tobacco. Dennington highlighted a number of campaigns that caught the public’s imagination.
“Some good examples of that is the work that we’ve done with Reiss and Abercrombie & Fitch — we bought our first women’s line of fashion through those organizations; the work we’re doing with Lego in capturing those sort of youth consumers into the brand; and also the work we’ve done with Tumi over the last few years in the luggage category.
“So we’re trying to extend the brand, we’re trying to create more access.”
In August, McLaren and Velo launched the “Live Your Fandom” campaign, offering nine superfans from the UK, Romania, the Czech Republic, Mexico and other places a “golden ticket” F1 experience in the form of a full day at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, England.
The chosen fans enjoyed a behind-the-scenes tour, shared their memories of the team directly with McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown, and took part in a surprise Q&A session with Norris.
One high-profile result of their special day was the graphical contributions they made to the team’s 2025 Abu Dhabi livery design, unveiled just days before Norris claimed the title, which featured art they helped create inspired by their most defining McLaren moments.
The livery features a series of bespoke images, including the “Papaya Family” representing the community spirit among McLaren F1 fans around the world; a “Forever Forward” friendship bracelet; and “Home Wins,” symbolizing the team’s victories this season in its home country at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, and at the Bahrain Grand Prix, which is considered the team’s second home.
Other images celebrated the back-to-back constructors’ championship victories; 200 race wins; 50 top-two race finishes; and the fastest pitstop of the 2025 season (1.91 seconds).
Louise McEwen, McLaren Racing’s chief marketing officer, said: “Our fans are at the heart of everything we do, and this special livery is another way of showing our appreciation.
“Through the ‘Live Your Fandom’ campaign with Velo we’ve been able to celebrate their passion and creativity in a way that truly brings the Papaya Family together.”
Such efforts by McLaren to bring more fans even closer to the action will continue, Dennington said.
“Less than 1 percent of all fans in Formula One over their lifetime get to go to a race,” he added. “So I think it’s up to us as a sport, as teams, to be able to create more opportunities for them (and) to connect with our fans.”
As for the image and identity of the team moving forward, he had a reassuring message for fans: “Papaya’s not going anywhere and you’ll continue to see that into the future.”
