Who Won the F1 British Grand Prix at Silverstone? Live Update

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Who won the F1 British Grand Prix at Silverstone? Find out, including the race winner, incidents and key moments.

Charles Leclerc won the British Grand Prix at Silverstone on Sunday, crossing the line under caution after Max Verstappen’s late crash erased any shot at a green-flag finish.

Kimi Antonelli’s championship cushion shrank further when a broken wheel shield and a track-limits penalty dropped the points leader from ninth all the way down to 16th, turning a dominant qualifying weekend into a damage-limitation exercise.

A record weekend crowd of 564,000 packed Silverstone, and boos rained down in the closing laps once it became clear the Safety Car would decide the finish rather than a final-lap shootout.

Leclerc’s Silverstone Win Comes With a Radio Message

Leclerc and Ferrari teammate Lewis Hamilton ran an early 1-2 formation off the start, pushing Antonelli back to third before the Mercedes driver’s car began falling apart. Leclerc controlled the race from the front for most of the afternoon, building a gap that swelled past 20 seconds before the Safety Car bunched the field back up. A Virtual Safety Car period earlier in the race, triggered by debris blowing onto the grass, had already scrambled several teams’ pit strategies and set up the tire choices that mattered when the real caution came out late.

“Tough times never last. Only tough people last,” Leclerc said over the radio after taking the checkered flag, according to Ferrari News. It marked his first win since the 2024 United States Grand Prix, snapping a stretch of results that had left him searching for the form Ferrari believes he still has.

Hamilton, who served a five-second penalty for jumping the start, still worked his way onto the podium in third, though his result remained under a cloud pending a yellow-flag investigation that could yet cost him the finish. He had said earlier in the weekend that Ferrari’s plan was to “play with the strategy and work as a team” to challenge Mercedes, according to Sky Sports.

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Antonelli Penalty, Verstappen Crash Define Chaotic Finish

Antonelli’s trouble started when he clipped a kerb at Copse and damaged his front-left wheel shield, forcing an early pit stop and a slide through the order. He was later hit with a five-second penalty for exceeding track limits, a call that dropped him from ninth to 16th once the final classification settled, according to Crash.net’s live race coverage.

Verstappen’s race ended when he lost control of his Red Bull at Stowe and speared into the gravel trap with only a handful of laps remaining, bringing out the full Safety Car that froze the field in place. Nico Hulkenberg had already parked his Audi at the side of the track earlier in the race, one of several stoppages on an afternoon of attrition at Silverstone’s high-speed layout. Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad both pitted late for fresh soft tires, gambling on a restart that never came once officials ruled there was no time left to wave green.

George Russell brought his Mercedes home in second by staying out of the pits during the late caution, salvaging a podium from a weekend that had trailed Antonelli throughout practice and qualifying. Russell had spent the buildup admitting Ferrari’s turnaround caught him off guard, and the result gave him a stronger finish than his own pace on Sunday suggested he had earned. Lando Norris and Isack Hadjar rounded out the top five, while the tightened points picture leaves Ferrari and Mercedes still separated by a shrinking margin heading into the next round.

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