“How does it feel to wait 15 years in F1 for a podium and get a trophy made out of Lego?” – Oscar Piastri
Hey everyone, Dre Harrison back at it with another DRR double header, and we start with the half-way race in the 2025 Formula 1 Season, and it’s one of the biggest of them all – the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. And with half a million across the gates across the weekend, they got to witness a Lando Norris home victory via his own Grandstand, Oscar Piastri throw away a sitter via some dodgy Safety Car protocol, and what’s headlining this very Race Review; because after 239 starts – Nico Hulkenberg is finally a F1 podium sitter. Let’s talk about it.
The Most Overdue Podium In F1 History
He had to have been thinking at times that this was never going to happen. The career of Nico Hulkenberg is a rollercoaster in and of itself and at times, you just didn’t know what direction it was going to move next.
A glistening junior career with Formula BMW, GP2 and A1 Grand Prix titles. Debuted at Williams 15 years ago. Had a miraculous pole position in Interlagos as the rain started to fall, but then immediately lost his seat at the end of 2010 as Williams needed money and Pastor Maldonado had it in spades. Had to sit on the bench for Force India before his second chance came.
He’d spend years as a Top 10 driver in the field, grinding away for years, with some incredible drivers, but not that huge headlining P3 finish. The ones I can easily rattle off – The fifth in Brazil in 2012, a race he could have won via his incredible wet weather pace, running shoulder to shoulder with Lewis Hamilton until he overcooked it and hit him.
His run at Sauber in the back half of 2013, including a fifth at Monza, and a fourth in Korea when he was head-to-head with the sport’s true elite in Webber, Hamilton and Alonso. At Renault too, his car dying in Mexico when he was running fourth, or the infamous M101 nicknamed “Drag Strip of Poor Judgement” in his home race at the Hockenheim. While he was always solid and sometimes brilliant, he was surrounded by other drivers who got their moments in the sun first. Sergio Perez had a real knack for it – 8 podiums and that miraculous win at the Bahrhombus before joining Red Bull. Kamui Kobayashi, Sauber’s last podium sitter, had his home fans chant his name in 2012.
Hell, he even gave Le Mans a go, and won on debut. While he wasn’t the leader of that Porsche squad, he made a winning contribution on the first time of asking at the greatest race of them all.
It was that same push for F1 to chase their own big name talents that led to Nico dropping off the grid as Daniel Ricciardo became Renault’s headline piece. Briefly. Three years of being a COVID-substitute in his mid 30’s refreshed the minds of the masses. At Silverstone itself, he was seventh at the 70th Anniversary Race after qualifying third. Driver of the Day at the Nurburgring going from the back to eight.
Haas brought him back in 2023 alongside the man who once told him to suck his balls in Kevin Magnussen, and again, made the team his own and lead the charge, pulling out consistently great drivers. 41 points last year under Ayao Komatsu was a breath of fresh air for the Banbury team. You could understand that with Audi due to take over Sauber, this was arguably the last roll of the dice for Hulk in his Age 38 season. But his race trim, especially after Sauber’s recent update, has been spectacular.
Hulkenberg just finished third at the British Grand Prix. In the rain. From 19th on the grid. I just… man.
And that’s the wildest thing about it all. It wasn’t a fluke. There weren’t major shenanigans involved. There was a brilliant call to Hulk from the pitwall onto the slicks in the early period between a dry and wet track to gain that track position against those who stayed out on Intermediates, but after that early chaos shook out, Hulk was fourth on the road behind Lance Stroll on the same strategy, and got past him into third once DRS was enabled at the steward’s discretion. The threat from behind was Hamilton’s Ferrari, but every time Lewis came close, he couldn’t get the drive out of corners to properly launch an attack. It was Marc Marquez at Assen last week, Hulk was unflappable under pressure and strong where the car needed to be in order to stay in front.
He got a slightly lucky break late on when the track became dry enough for slicks again, as Hamilton ran wide on his new soft tyres and caught a wet patch, but he held the gap steady at around six seconds. Hulkenberg’s pace was legitimately as good as anyone’s on track – He even set the fastest lap in that final stint.
It was a genuine feel good moment for the sport. Max Verstappen was fist pumping alongside. Gabriel Bortoleto, out early in the race via a crash, jumped on the radio to congratulate him. Oscar Piastri congratulated Nico before talking about his own race. Sauber was out in the podium in force, their first in nearly 13 years. A salute to Jonathan Wheatley1, who’s done an outstanding job so far in leading this team.
It’s the cherry on top of a huge shot in the arm for Hinwil, a team expanding to the UK and in need of some results of a long stint of spinning its wheels in its Alfa Romeo phase, and largely mocked in green. With Audi coming, we may be witnessing the final podium for one of the sport’s last true remaining privateers. I warned people that Wheatley being Red Bull’s glue guy was a coup for them, and with 35 points scored in the last four weekends, they’re now running sixth and are in contention for a huge pay packet. Who needs a tank?
This podium was a just reward for one of the best drivers to never truly have his day in the sun. It was a metaphor for a hell of a career. One of perseverance, grinding, rebuilding, and always being just outside the truly elite in the sport. In an alternative universe, he’s the Mercedes hire in 2014 and not Lewis Hamilton. But the story probably wouldn’t have as satisfying a conclusion. Nico Hulkenberg had to wait 239 starts for his moment. And boy was it worth it.
Papaya’s Broken Rules
The battle at the front was as the formbook suggested – McLaren wrote the story, even if it had to briefly deal with a stunning Max Verstappen pole lap, even if they were screwed by a setup with such a low amount of downforce it resembled Monza, according to Christian Horner.
Oscar Piastri used his P2 to eventually get to the front after Verstappen nearly lost it at Becketts, with him taking off early on during the worst of the conditions, a flash flood that looked more like a Malaysian monsoon. A Safety Car over the conditions and a huge wreck for Isack Hadjar hitting Kimi Antonelli from behind at Copse, and Piastri and Norris were fighting for the win after Max Verstappen dropped to 11th after spinning out on his own coming out of Stowe.
But Piastri committed a huge mistake – He slammed his brakes as the Safety Car’s lights went out. At that point, you’re not allowed to brake erratically. Piastri went from 135 to 32mph, applying 60 PSI of braking force. It was twice the strength applied to the George Russell incident that Red Bull filed a right to review against in Canada. It’s a pretty slam dunk penalty given it’s in wet conditions, a 100mph slam of the brakes, and Verstappen had to take avoiding action to dodge contact. I had no issue with the 10 second time penalty, and it ultimately cost Piastri track position and the win – Even if Lando Norris was stronger on pace in the dryer conditions.
Lando in a sense was a lucky man. He was stuck behind Verstappen for a while until he spun out and he never had to take Piastri on directly due to the penalty, but it’s not his fault that others made errors and Lando didn’t. Just like that, it’s a home win, a dream result and only an 8-point gap at the top of the Championship at the half way mark. That Canadian crash feels like a lifetime ago already. As I said after Austria… game on.
Before The Lightning Round… (Content Warning)
Sorry to lower the mood in a Lightning Round section, but now the F1 movie is out and generally doing well, it sucks that there’s been more battle lines drawn over the (lack of) inclusion of women in the plot, than the continued glossing over of Brad Pitt’s alleged domestic violence against his wife Angelina Jolie and the six kids he has that want nothing to do with him. It took a brilliant piece by Angelica Jade Bastién at Vulture to get people to spread it on social media a little bit. And it just highlights the most damning point of all – Using the F1 Movie to rehabilitate his public image has worked to perfection. Even more so the movie’s been a critical success.
It saddens me that so many people were either ignorant to that news, or worse, knew about it and swept it under the rug because there was too much money at stake between the sport, the studios, Pitt himself, and all the other stakeholders. The sport just bent over backwards for a domestic violence abuser, and like I’ve said between Gresini and their Lewis Hamilton photoshopping, or the grand forgetting of Chris Brown now he’s back on tour, racism and violence against women and children isn’t a big enough dealbreaker to break our own selfishness as consumers, or the relationships and access we have as journalists, influencers or content creators.
I shouldn’t be in the minority. And I think a lot of you reading this, know that*2.
The Actual Lightning Round
Pierre Gasly had the worst, best sixth place finish of his life. He was exceptional out there to get that sixth place, but Alpine as a manufacturer lost out because Franco Colapinto had the rare DNS for a broken gearbox, Aston Martin got both cars in the points for the first time this season with Stroll seventh and Alonso ninth, and Hulkenberg’s podium superseded them. Whatever happens, history will be made – With Alpine now on 19 points, whoever finishes bottom of the table will be the best bottom team in F1 history. And with Alpine throwing in the towel for 2025, it’s likely them.
With it, there’s going to be a barfight between Williams (59), Kick Sauber (41), Racing Bulls (36), Aston Martin (36), Haas (29) and Alpine (19) for fifth place. Good luck gentlemen, $60m of prize money is at stake.
Ollie Bearman needs a talking to. He was rightly ripped for trying a full racing pit entry while under a red flag at 165mph, taking a 10-place grid penalty and 4 penalty points on his license, the first in F1 history for the intent behind the incident. It’s genuinely impressive you had an even more iron clad case for an intentional foul than Verstappen did in Barcelona. It puts Bearman on 8 penalty points for the season and he was lucky not to get two more for clattering into teammate Esteban Ocon during the race. He somehow nearly finished in the points despite all that nonsense. The first time the rookie looked out of his depth in F1.
One podium streak starts, another ends – P4 for Lewis Hamilton meant his 15 year streak of British GP podium finishes came to an end. It’s the hope that gets you, but good to see him have a decent day, despite Ferrari’s… *hands gesture everywhere*
A reminder for some of the boomers out there – Isack Hadjar’s crash into the back of Kimi Antonelli is why the sport has the problems it does with wet weather running. The Extreme Wet in F1 is not usable because it’s too good at its job – clearing a ton of water but being 4-5 seconds a lap slower. And if it’s too wet for an Inter, it’s too wet to race, period. And this is what happens when you’re racing in Ground Effect cars. If you can’t see, you can’t race. It’s really that simple.
Mohammed Ben Sulayem has a new challenger for the FIA Presidency, its Tim Mayer, the man who MBS sacked at the end of last year after 15 years as a steward. I doubt he’ll be able to claw together enough support, even with David Richards endorsing him, but it’ll be interesting to publicly see just how many people actually have a problem with Ben Sulayem’s presidency.
166,000 in the house on Sunday for Silverstone. Add on Thursday and the British GP had 500,0003 across the weekend. An outrageous number and a testament to their success. For all the complaints about the pricing, the FOMO is still crazy strong. And for the differences in Motorsport fandom – They had 60,000 on Thursday. MotoGP had 40,000 on Sunday. They had more on Friday (130k), than MotoGP had the whole weekend (106k). Levels.
The Verdict: 8/10 (Great) – Your ultimate enjoyment of this one might boil down to how well you know the sport. Because the storytelling was immense. The early chaos of changeable conditions, the battle for the early lead, the dry to wet to dry weather, the midfield battles, the Piastri penalty, and of course, the nailbiting climax of Hulkenberg’s podium. It’s a feel good result, for a feel good race, and I loved this one for that very reason. Adjust accordingly. See you in three weeks time for the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa.
- Losing Wheatley, Newey and Marshall in two years might be having catastrophic consequences for Red Bull. Remember, Red Bull were down this development path back in 2023… ↩︎
- Just a note, my views only represent me – But I kinda wish they didn’t. You get me. ↩︎
- Including Hannah Waddingham. What a woman. ↩︎
