Charles Leclerc regressou ao topo ao vencer o Grande Prémio da Grã-Bretanha de 2026, recuperando o protagonismo na Ferrari após semanas difíceis e uma sucessão de resultados negativos. Enquanto Leclerc celebrava o regresso à vitória, Max Verstappen e a Red Bull enfrentaram mais um fim-de-semana marcado por problemas e frustrações, agravando uma fase já delicada para a equipa austríaca.
No circuito de Silverstone, Leclerc demonstrou um ritmo consistente ao longo do fim-de-semana, culminando numa exibição convincente durante a corrida. Apesar de Lewis Hamilton ter liderado os treinos livres de sexta-feira e a Sprint, foi Leclerc quem brilhou no evento principal, beneficiando de alterações de afinação que lhe permitiram distanciar-se do colega de equipa e dos rivais no momento decisivo. Hamilton explicou após a prova: “Balance-wise, I noticed Charles went up on his balance, I think compared to qualifying, added more wing, and I felt the car was really oversteery with the diff settings that we had had. And so, I took out wing and then I had the biggest understeer at the beginning of the race. So, he just pulled away from me. I just couldn’t even turn the car until halfway kind of through that first stint, I managed to start turning the car a little bit better with some diff changes, but by then the gap was already huge.”
Leclerc, visivelmente aliviado pela vitória, comentou depois da corrida a importância deste triunfo: “It means a lot because when things get tough, and that’s literally the situation I’ve been in the last few races, obviously there’s a lot of negativity around me in general, with narratives being created, and it’s never a nice environment to work in. But to keep our head down and to keep working very hard and get the result that we got today, I’m super proud of the whole team that have been pushing me and helping me to find that feeling again with the car. On such a track where confidence is key, I wouldn’t have been able to do that without the feeling, and so that’s really good.” O piloto monegasco acrescentou ainda: “I knew that I didn’t become a bad driver from one day to the other. It was just a matter of finding that feeling with the car. These cars are very specific, are very different to the way we’ve been driving since we started racing, and so it takes a bit more time to get used to it. I was very strong for the first part of the season, then I lost a bit of feeling with the car. We changed quite a few things with the car and it took a bit more time than what I had wished to get back to the level I wanted. It wasn’t a nice situation to be in, but I’m very happy to get out of this situation in this way.” Apesar de considerar que “It’s still the beginning. It’s only one race and I must not get carried away thinking that the war is over. I mean, the battle with this car has been quite a lot recently and I cannot take it for granted that now it’s behind me. So, I’ll keep working and try to get that feeling more often going ahead.”
No outro extremo, Max Verstappen viu a sua corrida terminar prematuramente devido a um problema com a fixação aerodinâmica da asa traseira. O holandês mostrou-se frustrado não só pela falha técnica, mas também pela falta de entendimento com os engenheiros, tendo sido contrariado na sua vontade de partir da via das boxes com uma configuração diferente. Antes da corrida, Verstappen afirmou: “Ask the team, as I would have done things differently.” Laurent Mekies explicou posteriormente que a equipa acreditava ser mais provável um melhor resultado a partir da posição normal de qualificação. O ambiente em redor da Red Bull agravou-se com a ausência do engenheiro-chefe Paul Monaghan e a incerteza política que se vive na estrutura, factores que têm afectado o desempenho e a moral da equipa.
Kimi Antonelli, apesar de ter perdido pontos valiosos devido a uma avaria no escudo da roda, destacou-se ao superar Hamilton na Sprint e conquistar a pole position. O italiano explicou o sucedido: “The car wouldn’t turn anymore. In some of the corners, the wheel was in the air, so there was something like fundamental that was broken. I know we only know now that the wheel shield broke, but we don’t know if something else broke, because by the loss it feels like it was more than just a wheel shield.” Antonelli mostrou resiliência ao tentar terminar a prova, mesmo com o carro afectado: “I have the mindset that I try, every time I go on track, I do my best, that I try to give everything, and today, despite things that were already going against us, I saw there was the possibility to get one point, and I was just trying my best to achieve that, and I was going to achieve that, but then the Safety Car came, and I just didn’t really have the possibility to even try for that.”
A McLaren, por seu lado, teve um fim-de-semana discreto, com Lando Norris a terminar em quarto e Oscar Piastri prejudicado por danos logo no arranque. Andrea Stella reconheceu que o resultado de Norris foi um “overachievement, although not on merit”, e abordou as diferenças no aproveitamento das unidades motrizes: “I think when it comes to the power unit exploitation and the opportunities that we have in this area, it’s a fact that we have opportunities, but the implication is not necessarily that HPP is not trying hard enough. Everyone is working at maximum pace, and there are a few things that can be left behind, so we accept that this is part of the conversations we are having with HPP. I never want to miss a chance to say that we always remain in excellent relationships, but, like anything in Formula 1 when you go at maximum pace, sometimes there’s a few beats that we could have done better, and I very much appreciate in my conversations that they do say, ‘Yeah, we see your point here, we could have done better’, you know, but it’s the same thing as a team. This is not something about HPP not trying hard. It’s about everyone trying to go as fast as possible, and I think it’s quite natural that, as a customer team, you remain a bit on the back foot.”
A Racing Bulls somou mais um duplo resultado nos pontos, com Liam Lawson a sublinhar o progresso da equipa: “It’s been working very well recently. Everything we’ve brought to the car has been positive. They’ve been working well each week, and we’ve been managing to find lap time, and I think the main thing, as well, is we’ve been starting really strong from the start of practice. We don’t really have to change much, so it’s always been a little bit of fine-tuning, and overall, that’s made it much faster to start.”
Alex Albon e a Williams continuam a debater-se com dificuldades, tendo o tailandês sido penalizado após um toque com Esteban Ocon. Albon explicou: “We have a lot of front locking and inside wheel lift, as you already know now; side by side with other cars, it gets 10 times worse. Sometimes, when a car wants to go around the outside, I feel a little bit like a passenger sometimes, which is what it was like in Turn 6 today. I was okay but, as soon as I saw Esteban committing to the outside, I knew I was gonna lock up. It’s kind of what we have at the minute, so I’ll get used to that. Sometimes you have to take a lot of caution on Lap 1, especially with our car for that reason, and I possibly could have taken a bit more.”
Franco Colapinto foi outro dos destaques, arrancando de 19.º e terminando nos pontos após uma boa estratégia e aproveitamento das oportunidades durante a corrida. No duelo com Pierre Gasly, Colapinto levou a melhor, garantindo mais um resultado positivo para a Alpine.
A próxima etapa será determinante para perceber se Leclerc e a Ferrari conseguem manter o ímpeto recuperado em Silverstone, enquanto Red Bull e Verstappen procuram respostas e estabilidade numa época marcada pela incerteza.
Não perca um segundo da Fórmula 1, Nascar, IndyCar e muito mais na aplicação mais completa do Mundo, basta carregar – AQUI (GRATUITO)