Charles Leclerc crossed the line first at Silverstone on Sunday, but you’d be forgiven for struggling to feel the joy. The 2026 British Grand Prix, 52 laps around one of Formula 1’s most beloved circuits, ended under a safety car. Ferrari had its win. Lewis Hamilton got pushed back to third by a pit stop that cost him second. And Max Verstappen, who had been putting on a masterclass all afternoon, was already in the gravel.
It was, to use the most honest word for it, an anticlimax.
Dianne Bortoletto and Ciara Gillan of Formula Live Pulse break it all down in Episode 79 of Away We Go Podcast, recorded in Margaret River just days after the race. Between them, they cover everything from Ferrari’s strategic gamble to Kimi Antonelli’s fighting spirit to what the whole weekend means for the drivers’ championship.
Leclerc’s win was no fluke, even if the circumstances conspired to make it look tidy. He led, he managed the gap, and he kept his composure as Antonelli came hunting him down on fresh tires. What makes the result genuinely significant is the milestone attached to it: Leclerc’s victory was Ferrari’s 250th Formula 1 win, a number that stretches back to 1951. That it fell to the driver who has given so much of his career to the Scuderia made it, as Ciara puts it on the podcast, genuinely poetic.
That said, the safety car deployed in the final four laps after Verstappen went off into the gravel remains the conversation everyone keeps coming back to. When it came out, Mercedes left George Russell on track while every other frontrunner pitted. It was the kind of call that looks like genius in hindsight, and Russell moved from a lower position all the way to second. Hamilton, who had done everything right all afternoon and was sitting second at the time, pitted for fresh tires ahead of a restart that never came, and ended up on the third step of the podium.
The broader question the episode wrestles with is whether Formula 1 should allow races to finish under a safety car at all. It’s a debate that inevitably pulls 2021 back into the room. Toto Wolff didn’t help matters when he publicly said he wished the same situation had applied in Abu Dhabi that year. For anyone who needs the reminder, that was the race that cost Lewis Hamilton his eighth championship under deeply controversial circumstances. The scars are still very much there.
Kimi Antonelli’s afternoon deserves a separate mention. The championship leader was on course to win, or at least challenge hard for the top spot, before a damaged wheel shield sent his aerodynamics haywire and left him fighting just to turn corners. He collected track limits penalties he had no ability to avoid, finished 15th, and still refused to come in when his team asked him to retire. At 19 years old, leading the drivers’ standings on 179 points with George Russell 25 behind, Antonelli is starting to look less like a surprise and more like the real thing.
Oscar Piastri had the kind of race no driver wants to have. First lap contact led to front wing damage, a lengthy pit stop, and a long afternoon clawing back to 11th. McLaren, as Ciara notes on the pod, are talking a better game than they’re delivering right now.
The sprint race, which ran earlier in the weekend, offered a different story: Antonelli won from Lewis Hamilton, with Lando Norris third. The McLarens had a genuinely strong start off the line before ultimately fading. Hamilton’s sprint pole had raised hopes of something special in the feature race, but the feeling from Friday that he described simply didn’t carry over.
With the constructors’ championship showing Mercedes on 333 points to Ferrari’s 255 and McLaren’s 179, and Spa-Francorchamps next on the calendar, the season is far from settled. Races end under safety cars. Championship leaders get wheel shields knocked off. Front wings get damaged on lap one. In Formula 1 in 2026, nothing is done and dusted until the lights go out for the last time.