Archive July 6, 2025

Lando Norris did not let a cut nose dampen his celebrations after winning his first British Grand Prix.

Norris might end up with a second scar on his nose, to match one caused by a glass cut last year, after a photographer fell off the pit-wall barriers and knocked the McLaren driver’s winner’s trophy into his face as he was trying to celebrate his Silverstone victory with the fans.

But a little while later he was up on the fan stage, two strips of medical tape on his injury, with team-mate Oscar Piastri and McLaren chief executive officer Zak Brown.

Norris did three ‘shoeys’, the celebration where a winner drinks champagne out of his shoe brought to Formula 1 from Australian sport by his former team-mate Daniel Ricciardo, and Piastri and Brown followed suit.

It was the least he – and they – deserved after a demanding, incident-packed, intensely difficult race in constantly changing conditions between wet and dry, which Piastri would have won but for a controversial penalty for what was adjudged a safety-car infringement.

Piastri will be stewing over that one for a while, but while Norris inherited the win, there was little to choose between them all weekend. And the Briton was pressing Piastri hard at the time the Australian pitted for tyres for the final time and served the penalty.

Both had driven exceptional races, in a different class to the rest of the field, in a car that looked as impressive as it has done all season.

Norris started watching F1, he said, when Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso were driving silver McLarens at Silverstone in 2007. He recalled that, as well as Hamilton’s brilliant victory in the wet in 2008.

And now, with Hamilton and Alonso still in the field, Norris had taken his own win in a silver – well, partially, anyway, at least for this weekend – McLaren.

“Lewis won, and I got that picture of him going around and seeing all the fans standing up, and that picture of what an atmosphere in Silverstone is like, and dreamed of that for many, many years,” Norris said.

“Today I got to live that feeling myself and see it through my own eyes. So, pretty amazing, pretty special.

A lot of people, from my friends and family, my brother, my sisters, my mum, my dad, my dad’s parents, every person that I could have here is here.

The win reduced his deficit to Piastri in the championship to eight points, and it was the first time he has won two grands prix in a row. But he was wary of talking about the meaning of it beyond itself.

“You can always class it as momentum or whatever,” he said. “I don’t know. It’s whatever you want to believe in the end of the day. I think it’s still just one race at a time.

“I give my credit to Oscar at the same time because he drove an extremely good race.

“It’s two wins, but they’ve not come easy by any means. We’ve had good fights, but they’re pretty strenuous, exhausting weekends because you’re fighting for hundredths and thousandths [of a second], and you’re fighting for perfection every session and I’m against some pretty good drivers. So, it takes a lot out of you, especially when you have a race like today.

The events of the day were demanding on everyone, but the way the race turned was, according to McLaren team principal Andrea Stella, “very harsh” on Piastri.

Piastri was penalised for braking hard in the middle of the straight as he prepared for the restart after the final one of three safety-car periods. This, in the stewards’ view, “resulted in [Max Verstappen’s Red Bull] having to take evasive action to avoid a collision”.

Piastri was furious. But – wary of the stance the FIA is taking at the moment on drivers speaking out, and not wanting to risk a further penalty or a fine – he kept his remarks well under control afterwards.

“Apparently you can’t brake behind the safety car any more,” he said. “I mean, I did it for five laps before that. Again, I’m not going say too much in case I get myself in trouble. “

Piastri was bemused by the penalty, because all drivers know the leader’s actions dictate things for those behind in this sort of situation, even if there are rules to follow.

The issue seemed to be that he had driven in this way after the safety car had switched its lights off to indicate it is about to withdraw, the point at which the rules say drivers must “proceed at a pace which involved no erratic braking nor any other manoeuvre which is likely to endanger other drivers”.

Piastri said: “I hit the brakes. At the same time I did that, the lights on the safety car went out, which was also extremely late. And then, obviously, I didn’t accelerate because I can control the pace from there.

The contrast to the outcome of a very similar incident in Canada two races ago between Mercedes’ George Russell and Verstappen was notable.

In Montreal, after the stewards took no action, Red Bull lodged a protest, but it was dismissed out of hand.

Piastri said: “Going back to Canada, I think he had to evade more there than he did today. So, yeah, I’m a bit confused to say the least. “

There was also the feeling within McLaren that Verstappen may have ‘gamed’ the system by exaggerating how much it affected him.

“I don’t think he had to evade me,” Piastri said. “He managed the first time. “

Team principal Andrea Stella said: “We’ll have to see also if other competitors kind of made the situation look worse than what it is.

“Because we know that as part of the race-craft, some competitors definitely have the ability to make others look like they are causing severe infringement when they are not. “

Verstappen said: “The thing is that it happened to me now a few times, this kind of scenario. I just find it strange that suddenly now Oscar is the first one to receive 10 seconds first. “

Was that because because there was no difference from what Russell did in Canada?

“Well, to the stewards, yes, (there was),” Verstappen said.

The end result was that Norris has moved himself on to four wins for the season, one short of Piastri.

“I felt like I drove a really strong race,” Piastri said. “Ultimately, when you don’t get the result you think you deserve, it hurts, especially when it’s not in your control.

“I will use the frustration to make sure I win some more races later. “

The final day of the German Track Cycling Championships was abandoned after several spectators were injured when two cyclists crashed into the crowd.

The incident happened on the final bend of the men’s keirin semi-finals as the two riders careered over the barriers at a speed of about 35mph at the track in Dudenhofen, western Germany.

Seven spectators were injured, some seriously, with two needing to be airlifted to hospital. The two cyclists escaped with minor injuries.

Two helicopters, six ambulances and an emergency doctor attended the incident.

“The health of athletes and spectators always comes first. Cancelling the event was therefore unavoidable. Best wishes for a speedy recovery go out to all those injured,” said German Cycling marketing and communications officer Oliver Streich.

The final day of the German Track Cycling Championships was abandoned after several spectators were injured when two cyclists crashed into the crowd.

The incident happened on the final bend of the men’s keirin semi-finals as the two riders careered over the barriers at a speed of about 35mph at the track in Dudenhofen, western Germany.

Seven spectators were injured, some seriously, with two needing to be airlifted to hospital. The two cyclists escaped with minor injuries.

Two helicopters, six ambulances and an emergency doctor attended the incident.

“The health of athletes and spectators always comes first. Cancelling the event was therefore unavoidable. Best wishes for a speedy recovery go out to all those injured,” said German Cycling marketing and communications officer Oliver Streich.

If a bad team plays badly, it does not hurt so much.

When a team that can be great gets thrashed, those are the ones that really cause pain.

And that is why Ben Stokes’ England Test team are stuck in this cycle of frustration.

From the sensational win at Headingley last week, to a thrashing in the second Test in Birmingham.

As England’s fate was sealed on day five, Edgbaston was alive to the beat of an Indian drum.

“England get battered everywhere they go,” sang the tourists’ support.

This 336-run defeat can be added to the 423-run loss in Hamilton, the nine-wicket thrashing in Rawalpindi, the meek eight-wicket loss at the hands of a poor Sri Lanka at The Oval or the 434-run thrashing by India in Rajkot last February.

When England lose, they lose badly.

Two of those, against New Zealand and Sri Lanka, could be written off as dead rubbers. Were the list shorter, you could put them down to the odd bad day.

But until the trend of one England hammering a series is ruled out, they are not going to get to where they want to go.

Series wins could come – they may beat India over five matches here – but some have been talking about this team going on to become the best England side since the one Andrew Strauss led to the top of the world rankings.

No-one represents England’s feast or famine better than Ollie Pope.

After a fine century in Leeds, he made a duck and 24 in his two innings at Edgbaston.

It is a familiar problem for a batter who did not make a fifty in the four Tests in India at the start of last year after his epic 196 in the first Test.

Before play on day five he was working with batting coach Marcus Trescothick on his head position, attempting to prevent himself falling to the off side before contact, as he did when edging Akash Deep in the first innings.

With its slope, Lord’s is not the ideal place to have such issues.

Zak Crawley is another batter unable to break free of his own troubles.

His 65 in the first Test, which followed 124 against Zimbabwe, was crucial to England’s win but his wild drive in the second over of England’s chase was the worst dismissal in an otherwise sensible quest for a draw.

The Test also resulted in some ugly numbers for England spinner Shoaib Bashir.

The 21-year-old’s match figures of 5-286 are the most expensive for England since 1950 and the third-most costly in his side’s Test history.

No Test spinner who has bowled as many overs (679. 1) as Bashir has as high an economy rate (3. 80). Not pretty.

England’s Bashir experiment is at an interesting phase. Picked for his debut last year after just 10 first-class matches and still unable to get a game for his county, he has been picked on potential.

Against Zimbabwe at the start of the summer, he looked to be finding success by bowling tighter to the stumps, resulting in a more accurate line, while he was also bowling a fuller length.

He deserves credit for working on a ‘carrom ball’ – an off-spinner’s mystery delivery which is flicked from the hand and turns from right to left – which he bowled at least three times in the first innings.

But six of his eight wickets in this series have come caught in the deep. The others were a lower-order stumping and a top-edged slog he caught himself.

That leads nicely to England’s pace bowlers. Having opted to pick an unchanged side for Edgbaston, Chris Woakes, Brydon Carse and Josh Tongue have now bowled 82, 77 and 81 overs respectively.

Mohammed Siraj is the only India quick to have bowled more than 62.

All three of England’s pacemen struggled at times in Birmingham. Woakes was not as threatening after his new-ball spell while Tongue has been played well by India’s top order and was not as successful against the tail as in the first Test.

Change will surely come at Lord’s given three days off is little time to recover and Jofra Archer is waiting in the wings.

Could England conceivably leave out all three?

Gus Atkinson, who has not played since May because of a hamstring injury, is back in the squad but it would be a risk to play Atkinson and Archer, who has bowled in two innings in a match once in four years, in the same XI.

Woakes, 36, may need a rest but England like variety in their attack and he averages 12. 9 at Lord’s – the best of any bowler in Test history.

England would also need to replace his batting at number eight if he is left out – even more so if Carse, an able batter, was also absent at number nine.

Sam Cook is the Woakes replacement in England’s squad but does not offer that same batting depth.

That it is England with selection problems is a remarkable turnaround from six days ago. India came into the second Test facing endless questions around their XI.

Their big calls have been proven right, however.

Picking batting all-rounder Washington Sundar at number eight looked a defensive move but he shared an important stand of 144 with his captain, Shubman Gill, in the first innings and had Stokes lbw shortly before lunch with his off-spin on the final day.

The other big call was to rest Jasprit Bumrah. His replacement Akash Deep was majestic and took 10 in the match.

In truth, Gill could not have asked for a better week.

Some questioned his declaration on day four but its timing meant England faced Deep with the new ball late on and again when it was still hard the next morning. The result was two wickets in each spell.