British Grand Prix: Race Recap
July 14, 2019
Event: British Grand Prix (Round 10 of 21)
Date: Sunday, July 14
Location: Silverstone Circuit
Layout: 5.891-kilometer (3.66-mile), 18-turn circuit
Weather: Mostly cloudy
Air Temps: 18.6-20.2 degrees Celsius (65.5-68.4 degrees Fahrenheit)
Track Temps: 27.5-35.6 degrees Celsius (81.5-96.1 degrees Fahrenheit)
Race Winner: Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes
Team Result: Romain Grosjean – Started 14th / Retired (Accident, completed 9/52 laps)
Kevin Magnussen – Started 16th / Retired (Accident, completed 6/52 laps)
Recap
Rich Energy Haas F1 Team drivers Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen fell victim to an opening-lap incident and both retired shortly thereafter in Sunday’s British Grand Prix, the 10th round of the 2019 FIA Formula One World Championship at Silverstone Circuit.
Grosjean was 14th and Magnussen 16th on the starting grid and launched cleanly. Magnussen pulled alongside to the right of Grosjean while the two were negotiating turn five and the two made side-by-side contact, both VF-19’s emerging with punctured rear tires. Both pitted to change from their Pirelli P Zero Red soft tires for a set of White hards and resumed, Grosjean in 19th and Magnussen in 20th.
Magnussen was called back to the pits after completing six laps and Grosjean after completing nine laps, and both were subsequently retired with accident damage.
With today’s results, Rich Energy Haas F1 Team remained ninth in the constructor’s championship with 16 points, three behind eighth-place Toro Rosso and Racing Points and 16 ahead of 10th-place Williams.
Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton won today’s British Grand Prix, crossing the finish line 24.928 seconds ahead of his Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas. It was Hamilton’s milestone 80th career win, his seventh of the season and sixth at Silverstone. Charles Leclerc of Scuderia Ferrari took the final podium position of third.
The 2019 FIA Formula One World Championship resumes July 28 with the German Grand Prix at Hockenheimring in Hockenheim.
Romain Grosjean, Driver No. 8, Rich Energy Haas F1 Team
“I picked up the rear right puncture. After the pit-stop the damage to the car, on the floor, the brake ducts and so on, it was too much to be able to carry on racing. We had to retire the car unfortunately. It’s a real shame. We wanted to evaluate both packages on the cars today. My car felt really good on the way to the grid, I was encouraged by those laps, and was hoping for a good race.”
Kevin Magnussen, Driver No. 20, Rich Energy Haas F1 Team
“I think we had a decent weekend going for us, but obviously qualifying went worse than we expected. I think we’ve learned some things this weekend about the car, with the experiments we’ve tried. We didn’t get any result out of this today but hopefully we can take some learnings onto the next one.”
Guenther Steiner, Team Principal, Rich Energy Haas F1 Team
“It was a very disappointing race for us. I’m just stating the obvious here. The best that our drivers could bring to the battle was a shovel – to dig the hole we’re in even deeper. We need to go back, regroup, and see what we do in future.”