F1Weekly Podcast # 1102

Play Podcast: 07-07-25f1weekly1102.mp3

Norris inherits the win in wet and wild British Grand Prix after Piastri penalty! Max spins on the restart finishes P5. The Big news……..Nico Hulkenberg finishes ON THE PODIUM!!!!!

Silverstone, 6 July 2025 – Stake F1 Team KICK Sauber celebrated a memorable result as Nico Hulkenberg finished third in the British Grand Prix. It was a special moment for Nico, who scored his first-ever Formula One podium at the 239th time of asking; and for the team as a whole, back on the podium for the first time since Kamui Kobayashi’s Suzuka heroics in 2012.
On a race defined by changing weather and Silverstone Circuit’s slippery surface, Nico went from 19th on the grid to the rostrum with a composed performance that mixed precision, experience and pure speed when it mattered. Having overtaken rivals on his way to P3, Nico held seven-time World Champion, Lewis Hamilton, at bay in the closing laps to record an emotional finish for the team and spark celebrations in the Stake F1 Team KICK Sauber garage.

On the other side of the garage, Gabriel Bortoleto’s race ended early after a spin resulted in damage to his C45. A brave call by the young Brazilian to mount slick tyres at the end of the formation lap, together with several other drivers, didn’t pay off as the track took longer than expected to dry, resulting in a loss of control at turn one. Still, it was a weekend of important lessons for Gabriel, who will come back stronger as the season resumes in Spa-Francorchamps in two weeks.
Today’s result, and the 15 points that came with it, lift the team to sixth place in the Constructors’ Championship at the mid-way point of the season. The hard work continues, fuelled by the incredible motivation boost this summer is providing.

Nico:

“I am ecstatic — this is such a special day for the team and for me personally. That first podium feeling… I cannot put it into words. It was such an intense race with changing conditions all the time, and you always feel like you are right on the edge.
“We made the right calls today, especially stopping later for slicks — that decision was crucial and made all the difference. The battle with Lewis in the final stint was really intense. He was closing the gap, but I managed to keep him behind and even pull away a little as the tyres came in. I think if it had been a dry race, the day would have looked very different for us, but we made the most of the conditions and took every opportunity.
“Starting from last on the grid and finishing on the podium honestly feels kind of surreal. It’s going to take a few days, a few moments, to process everything and take it all in. It’s been a great team effort from start to finish, and I am really proud of what we achieved together. Now, we have two weeks to enjoy this and celebrate properly before we get back to work – and finish the first half of the season on a high.”

Carlos:

Carlos Sainz, now with Williams but Hulkenberg’s team-mate at Renault in 2018, said he always knew the 37-year-old was good enough for F1 – even if his lack of podiums had led other to question it.
“Congrats. He must have done a very solid race to be up there in P3,” he said.
“Honestly, for me the fact that people kept cursing him, the fact that he didn’t have any podiums, for me it was completely irrelevant. For me he’s always been a top-five driver in the grid every time he’s been in F1. His level of talent and race execution is incredible.

“I was his team-mate at the time. And the fact that he didn’t have a podium was just circumstantial. So I’m glad he has his podium now to shut up everyone that doubted him. For me, I never doubted him. And I knew he was one day going to be on the podium.”

Max:

“Today wasn’t great. We didn’t think it was going to be so wet today; the weather forecast overnight changed and it was not in our favour, so it was really difficult with the rear wing that we had today. Every time we were low on downforce and couldn’t balance it out in the high and low speed, with the tools that we had. Of course, I had the spin and we lost a lot of positions at the restart. I don’t really know what happened as I tried to go on the throttle, but we recovered it as much as we could to get to P5.

Even after that happened, I continued and the car had no pace which wasn’t great. From a positive side, we got our strategy right and did the right thing with the pit stop and staying on the inters. All the calls were correct but the inters just lacked a bit of pace. That is racing though, we will never be happy with fifth, but we move on to the next race. The race wasn’t that enjoyable for me but it was nice to see Nico get his first podium and I’m sure he will be celebrating tonight. Spa is next and my favourite on the calendar, so hopefully we will go a bit better there.”

Fernando:

“I feel like it was a missed opportunity today despite scoring some points. It was difficult to read with the rain falling again and we lost some positions in the first pit-stop. For the second pit-stop we pitted too soon and I lost a lot of time on a slightly damp track with slick tyres.

We had some good pace but in the end we weren’t able to capitalise on an eventful race. I am very happy for Nico [Hülkenberg] to score his first podium and I hope he enjoys the celebrations.”

Dixon Takes Record-Extending Win at Mid-Ohio After Rare Mistake by Palou!

LEXINGTON, Ohio (Sunday, July 6, 2025) – Scott Dixon combined masterful fuel saving and a rare mistake by teammate and NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship leader Alex Palou with five laps to go Sunday to win The Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Presented by the All-New 2026 Passport.

Dixon continued two remarkable series-record streaks with his 59th career victory, first win this season in the No. 9 PNC Bank Chip Ganassi Racing Honda and seventh career win at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course: He has won at least once in 21 consecutive seasons dating back to 2005 and has recorded a victory in 23 seasons during his illustrious career.

It was definitely a tough race,” Dixon said. “We had fantastic cars. But just so much fun to try and pull off what we did and do it with what we had was fantastic.

“They were supposed to (remove downforce) from the front wing on the last stop. I just had to look at the corner, and the car was going to turn. I was just hoping the rear tires were going to hold on.”

Six-time series champion Dixon crossed the finish line just .4201 of a second ahead of Palou’s No. 10 Open AI Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, the closest result this season in the series. Christian Lundgaard placed third in the No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet.

Colton Herta finished fourth in the No. 26 Gainbridge Honda of Andretti Global w/Curb-Agajanian, while 2024 Mid-Ohio winner Pato O’Ward rounded out the top five in the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet.

NTT P1 Award winner Palou led Dixon by approximately two seconds and appeared to be headed to his seventh victory of the season on Lap 85 when he ran wide into the dirt adjacent to Turn 9 and slowed, with Dixon squeezing past for a lead he would not surrender.

“Just a stupid mistake, honestly,” Palou said. “A mistake on my part. The car was amazing all weekend, all race. I just lost it a little bit on (corner) entry and kind of really couldn’t get power going on.

“Nobody to blame but me. Just got a bit wide on entry and lost it completely.”

Palou pulled to within .356 of a second with two laps to go but could draw no closer as Dixon put on a master class of choosing lines that maintained speed while slyly and legally blunting the momentum of his trailing rival.

Dixon’s ability to adjust his racing lines on the fly was most evident in Turn 2, the famous “Keyhole” corner, on the last two laps.

On Lap 89, Dixon opened the low line for Palou to explore and then eased from mid-corner across Palou’s lower line on corner exit, taking advantage of the wider line in the turn to pull away on the back straightaway. On the final lap, Dixon instead chose the low line through Turn 2, eliminating a prime overtaking spot for Palou.

Dixon’s victory was as masterful as it was improbable.

With a starting spot of ninth, Dixon and strategist Mike Hull decided to capitalize on Dixon’s legendary ability to save fuel and attempt to complete the race on just two pit stops, one fewer than most teams attempted. The fuel mileage alchemy needed some laps under yellow to have a chance to succeed, and Dixon got that during the final caution period from Laps 31-34 when Christian Rasmussen’s No. 21 ECR Splenda Chevrolet stopped off course in Turn 8.

Dixon made his final pit stop at the end of Lap 61. Meanwhile, Palou was pushing hard up front in the lead, knowing he had to build a sufficient gap on track to keep the top spot from Dixon after his final stop and make a three-stop strategy work.

Palou entered the pits for his final stop at the end of Lap 72 and rejoined the 13-turn, 2.258-mile circuit ahead of Dixon on track. He expanded his lead to 1.8 seconds by Lap 77 and appeared to be headed to his seventh victory of the season.

Then Palou bobbled with five laps to go, and Dixon pounced.

“We still had to save fuel all the way to the end, so it was definitely very tight,” Dixon said. “I didn’t see what happened. I saw he went off in Turn 9. We got a little bit lucky with that.”

There was some solace for Palou despite the barbed disappointment of giving away a win. His championship lead, 93 points entering this event, grew to 113 points. That’s a gap of more than two races with seven races remaining this season.

James Vowles, Team Principal: Firstly, congratulations to Sauber and to Nico – an extraordinary result today and well-earned in these difficult conditions. For us, we didn’t expect it to stay as wet for that duration. The car was set up more for a dry race and you could see that. In Inter conditions and even when it was drying, we were poor. We were taken by Aston Martin and dropped back, but at the end of the race, Alex was flying and able to climb back, which shows the swing in our performance. We also didn’t get the second Intermediate call right and that cost us many seconds. For Carlos, he did everything right, but it was out of his control when a Ferrari spun in front of him and he had to avoid it. It’s a tough reflection on today – I was hoping for more points.

Now we go to Spa, where we’ve got an update coming that should give us a bit of an edge and help us fight back in that very tight midfield battle. Spa, like Silverstone, has tended to suit our car in the past, so let’s reset and come back fighting. We have the pace to score points from here to the end of the year.

Alex Albon: I’m happy with our race today. We got the balance right between risky and safe, and bounced back from a tricky day yesterday. Towards the end of the race, we had really good pace, good rhythm, and managed to get Alonso on the last lap. I loved the conditions, where the racing line is so small and there’s no room for mistakes. Looking to the next race, we collected a lot of useful data this weekend, which will help us get on top of the issues before Spa.

Carlos Sainz: I had a good race, keeping out of trouble, managing the tyres and had good pace. Unfortunately, towards the end and on slick tyres, I was about to overtake Charles, but he lost the car into turn 15, came across the track and hit my front wing and front floor. We both went off, losing a lot of positions and I had a damaged car until the end of the race. It seems to be the story of my season so far and it’s very annoying that different issues continue to impact our weekends. I’m driving well and I know better days will come, but it’s frustrating at this point. I’m looking forward to the two-week reset and hopefully we can have a better second half of the season. Massive thanks to every Williams fan out there this weekend! Your support has been amazing! Thank you.

Formula 2

Crawford in stunning form to seal victory through Silverstone rain!

Jak Crawford was in sublime form on Sunday morning, putting in a dominant performance to win
a rain-affected Silverstone Feature Race.
The DAMS Lucas Oil driver took the lead at the start from third on the grid and held off Alexander
Dunne late on to claim victory at the British venue.
Dunne finished in second for Rodin Motorsport, while Luke Browning’s stunning charge through
the field from P12 took him to the final spot on the podium.

It was a bad launch for pole-sitter Victor Martins as Crawford jumped up from third on the grid to
take the lead on the run to Turn 1, with Dunne in second.
Martins managed to retain third ahead of Roman Stanek as Joshua Duerksen settled into fifth for
AIX Racing.
Arvid Lindblad and Browning continued their battling from the Sprint Race as they went side by
side through Stowe on Lap 2, with the Williams Driver Academy member taking P8 with a
switchback at Vale.
Dino Beganovic then followed his Hitech teammate through on the next lap at Turn 4, dropping
the Campos Racing driver down to 10th
.
Browning continued his charge through the field on Lap 4, going down the inside of Richard
Verschoor at Copse corner to P7. Beganovic once again followed his lead, going past the MP
Motorsport driver at the final corner.
The Hitech pairing were flying and on Lap 5. Browning used the switchback at Turn 4 to overtake
Sebastián Montoya for sixth, with Beganovic again following him through a few corners later.
Back at the front, Crawford had built a 1.8s gap to Dunne, and they were also pulling away from
Martins in third, who was 3.2s behind Dunne, as Duerksen and Browning closed in on Stanek in
fourth.
The Paraguayan took P4 from his Invicta Racing rival on the run to Copse, with Browning taking
advantage of Stanek going wide to take fifth.