By Robert Haile

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen dominated the British Grand Prix after an early scare.

The Championship leader continued his qualifying run making it five pole positions in a row and made it Red Bull’s tenth straight win of the season.

Verstappen’s first Silverstone win is his sixth Grand Prix victory in a row as the 2023 season looks to be over as a contest.

The battle behind the World Champion elect is heating up as McLaren’s Lando Norris took second and Mercedes Lewis Hamilton third as the British crowd had something to cheer.

Race winner Verstappen said: “We had a terrible start, so we need to look into why that was. Both McLarens in the beginning were super quick, so it took a few laps to pass them.

“After the safety car on the softest compound around here, it was a little bit more tricky for us to keep them (tyres) alive basically.

“Very happy that we won again and 11 wins in a row for the team – I think that is pretty incredible.”

The pole sitter was slow off the line and Verstappen was passed by McLaren’s Norris who took the lead going into the first corner and could have dropped to third as McLaren’s Oscar Piastri almost got past going into the first lap.

The trio settled and Verstappen retook the lead on lap 5 with Norris and Piastri settling in behind.

Alpine’s Esteban Ocon was an early retirement as the race settled into a grove as Mercedes George Russell was stuck behind Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz in the battle for fourth after passing Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari.

Everything changed when Haas’ Kevin Magnussen car sprouted white smoke and then briefly set alight on lap 32 as a Virtual Safety Car deployed with full Safety Car coming out soon after.

As teams pulled drivers in there soon seemed to be a very big problem for McLaren.

First Hamilton had got the better of Piastri in the pitstops moving into third ahead of the McLaren driver and then almost all of the other teams had opted for the fast soft tyres except the McLaren team going for hard tyre and Russell and Leclerc going for the medium tyre.

At the restart on lap 38 Verstappen peeled away and never looked back as he claimed his first British Grand Prix.

The battle for second looked to have swung to Mercedes’ Hamilton but McLaren’s Norris put on a defensive masterclass to hold on to the place with Piastri doing the same to Russell.

Further back Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll had a end to forget as he battled with Alpine’s Pierre Gasly.

A strong move on the Alpine prompted calls from the team that Stroll needed to give the place back and then a second pass on the Alpine brought its race to an end as they collided leaving Gasly with suspension issues.

A five second penalty followed for Stroll that would send him down the order.

The top five of Verstappen, Norris, Hamilton, Piastri and Russell didn’t change Sergio Perez moved up into sixth with Fernando Alonso dropping to seventh.

Alex Albon and Leclerc passed Sainz to complete the points scoring places.

Logan Sargeant moved into eleventh with Valtteri Bottas and Nico Hulkenberg also gaining places as Stroll dropped to fourteenth.

The final three were Zhou Guanyu, Yuki Tsunoda and Nyck de Vries as Gasly, Ocon and Magnussen did not finish.

Max Verstappen’s lead is increased to 99 points ahead of his teammate Sergio Perez in the Drivers Championship with Fernando Alonso 19 points off Perez in third.

In the Constructors Championship Red Bull are 199 points clear of Mercedes in second with Aston Martin 6 points back in third and Ferrari 20 points off second in fourth.

Formula One continues its European tour as it heads to the Hungaroring for the Hungarian Grand Prix on 21-23 July.