Leclerc’s victory was Ferrari’s second in three races following Hamilton’s in Barcelona. Although Mercedes were faster, and Antonelli almost certainly would have won, Ferrari were much more competitive at Silverstone than they expected.
They already had the fastest car in the corners, and an engine upgrade introduced in Austria has cut the deficit to Mercedes on the power and deployment front.
Hamilton said: “It’s amazing to see the pace that we’ve had this weekend at this sort of circuit. We definitely didn’t anticipate it. So just phenomenal to [have a] strong weekend as a team and come away with really good points is really, really special.”
Leclerc and team principal Frederic Vasseur, though, were cautious about their prospects of becoming consistent challengers to Mercedes.
“It’s too early to say,” Leclerc said. “This weekend was a particularly big surprise for the whole team. Not the win today, just the overall performance.
“We were a lot faster than what we thought, and I think as much as we need to analyse when things are going a lot worse than expected, we also need to analyse when things go a lot better than expected.
“Coming into the weekend, I remember the meetings that we’ve done on Thursday and we kind of thought we would be 0.6secs, 0.5secs off, minimum, and we were much better than that, and we actually won today. So, it’s a very special feeling.”
As for 19-year-old Antonelli, he was relaxed, as well he might be. Although the race turned sour, this was another weekend in which he was the fastest guy out there. The pace is coming to him much more easily than it is to Russell, he looks unbeatable if he doesn’t hit problems, and 25 points is still a substantial lead.
“We lost a lot of points, but this weekend we showed the speed, and we showed as well what the potential can be,” Antonelli said.
“When I’m in a good place, when also we’re in a good place with the team, with the car, we showed what we are capable of.
“So the momentum is still there, and actually it makes the fire grow even more, to go out there, inspire and try to do even better.”
