Winners and losers from the British GP: Leclerc back on top, Antonelli and Verstappen suffer

With now only 25 points separating championship leader Antonelli and Mercedes teammate George Russell, the race for the 2026 F1 Drivers' title has been blown wide open, while a commanding performance from Leclerc has given P3's Lewis Hamilton a reminder he may not have it all his own way at Ferrari.

Rumours will continue to swirl over Verstappen's future after his DNF at Silverstone, the Dutchman looked good for a podium before a Lap 48 crash at Stowe, confirmed to have been caused by a rear wing failure, brought his race to an end. The Dutchman was not shy to voice his displeasure with the Red Bull team, only fuelling speculation of a potential exit.

It may have been a rather unceremonious end to the Grand Prix, under the Safety Car following Verstappen's late crash, but Leclerc will not care one bit after a much needed win for Ferrari - his first since Austin in 2024.

And yes, Antonelli was catching the Monegasque in the latter stages of the race, and likely to take the win before encountering mechanical issues, but Leclerc was duly rewarded for an upturn in performance in Qualifying - securing P2 ahead of teammate Hamilton - and an excellent race start to get ahead of the young Italian, showing strong pace throughout to stay there.

Given how well Leclerc performed against Hamilton in 2025, it has been a surprise to see him lagging behind the Briton so far in 2026, making mistakes such as that of his spin in Miami or crash in Barcelona Qualifying, and lacking confidence in the complex cars of the new regulation cycle, but a win at Hamilton's home race has sent a message that the 28-year-old is still very much a force to be reckoned with.

It was all going so well for Antonelli as the British GP entered its closing stages. Yes, he had lost his lead from Pole at the start, but with a 10-lap tyre offset, he was favourite for the win as he honed in on Leclerc.

But suddenly, a failure with the Italian's wheel shield turned everything upside down - Antonelli was forced into the pits on two occasions due to the issue, and with driveablity severely hampered, he then received a five-second penalty for track limits. The late Safety Car curtailed what was a valiant last-ditch effort to rescue some points, with the Italian ultimately finishing P16 after the applied penalty.

While out of control, F1's youngest ever championship leader has had his title hopes dented, after having also suffered a DNF in Barcelona two rounds prior - he now sits only 25 points ahead of Russell, and 32 ahead of the resurgent Hamilton.

The Italian admitted the result "hurts," but was nonetheless adamant he still has strong momentum as we head towards F1's summer break, telling GPblog and others: "I think we lost a lot of points, but the momentum is there because I think this weekend, we showed the speed and we showed as well what the potential can be.

What a rollercoaster of a race that was for Russell. Again, the Briton lagged behind his mercurial Mercedes teammate throughout the weekend, but has managed to regain P2 in the standings and close that gap to Antonelli.

Russell was 10 seconds behind Sprint winner Antonelli - finishing P4 in Saturday's race - and three tenths off the Italian in Qualifying. And again, the pace was just not there during the race, but similarly to Leclerc, Russell will not mind too much.

Spending most of his time out of the podium positions, it looked like more bad luck for Russell after a rear-right puncture, but mechanical failure for Antonelli, and the Safety Car caused by Verstappen's crash, allowed the 28-year-old to eventually snatch P2 from Hamilton, and put himself right back in the title conversations.

Russell told GPblog and others after the race: "I don't really know how to, to sum it up, to be honest, because it's been a very challenging weekend, you know, things within my control not good enough, things outside of my control haven't been good enough, which has all resulted in poor pace.

Things are really not looking rosy at Red Bull right now. Verstappen was on course for a podium finish before his rear wing failure and race-ending crash at Stowe on Lap 48 - leading to a furious radio message in which the Dutchman exclaimed: "F*** this car!"

Verstappen was not shy in his criticism of Red Bull, both in terms of the "super dangerous" rear wing, which is also said to have been the cause of his Austrian GP Qualifying crash, and in the team's decision not to grant his requests of set up changes prior to the Grand Prix.

Responding to Verstappen's comments, Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies said the Dutchman was "right to be unhappy," and when asked on the Dutchman's criticism of the set up decision, told GPblog and others: "After qualifying it was clear we were not very happy with the balance of the car to say the least and changing the setup of the car would simply mean starting from the pit lane."

Another frustrating weekend will only increase speculation of a Verstappen exit from Red Bull, whose leadership also met with the Dutchman's management immediately after the race. The four-time world champion is now able to trigger an exit clause to leave the team, as he cannot be top two in the standings at the summer break.

It all looks a lot better over at Red Bull's sister team Racing Bulls after yet another double points finish for Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad, P6 and P7 at Silverstone respectively. That is the fourth race in a row the VCARB pair have both secured points, having finished P9 and P10 in Austria last week.

It wasn't always pretty, a feisty weekend from Lawson saw him avoid penalties for collisions with Oscar Piastri in the Sprint, where the Kiwi secured P8, and Alex Albon in the Grand Prix, and the former Red Bull man was told to hurry up by his rookie teammate as Racing Bulls dealt with the threat of Audi's Gabriel Bortoleto.

But an impressive finish sees Lawson just three points off Pierre Gasly in P9 in the standings, while 18-year-old Linbdlad made history to become the youngest-ever Brit to score points at their home Grand Prix - helping Racing Bulls to move one point off Alpine for fifth in the Constructors'.

McLaren's Oscar Piastri's race was virtually over before it began after the aforementioned collision with Lawson, with the Aussie having to pit to replace a heavily damaged front wing. Piastri showed strong pace in his fight back, but just missed out on the points in P11.

On the other side of the garage, things were brighter for home racer Lando Norris, securing P4 to go along with an impressive third place finish in the Sprint. But McLaren are clearly behind their competitors, as they continue to struggle to get their heads around the 2026 regulations.

A downbeat Norris said post-race to GPblog and others: "Other people have bought a lot of upgrades and updates since [Miami], and we kind of haven't, so yeah, nothing has brought us that much performance. I don't know, the car was just undriveable."