After Lewis Hamilton's shock pole, Formula 1's British Grand Prix sprint wasn't quite the fairytale the home crowd hoped for.

Here's our pick of the winners and losers from it.

Loser: Lewis Hamilton (2nd)

Second place on home soil is hardly a bad result for Hamilton, especially given how tough the Austrian GP weekend was for Ferrari just a week ago. 

But he squeaks into the loser category just for the manner in which Antonelli dispatched him, Antonelli "using everything I had" of the battery.

Hamilton was utterly powerless to avoid Antonelli easily passing him on the run to Stowe; "halfway down the straight", in the words of Hamilton. 

It wasn't the epic Silverstone duel Hamilton would have wanted.  Instead, he faced a race-long battle to try to break the one-second overtake mode barrier, something he couldn't do.

So even if Hamilton can repeat his sprint pole later, Ferrari will need to find something if it wants to challenge Mercedes on Sunday. - Josh Suttill

Winner: Kimi Antonelli (1st)

A three-point extension of the championship lead - though totally par for the course given the sprint allocation - feels like it undersells somehow just how emphatic this was from Antonelli.

It felt like Hamilton's early pace that dragged them away from the podium battle was laying down a gauntlet for Antonelli, but even over a 17-lap distance it was over around the halfway point, such was the margin Antonelli seemed to have in hand.

In a conventional race, as long as he stays out of wheel-to-wheel trouble and the car holds up mechanically, the British GP is surely his. And, really, with Hamilton and George Russell taking points off each other, he needs just a couple of clean rounds to make the points lead start to feel unassailable. - Val Khorounzhiy

Loser: Max Verstappen (6th)

Max Verstappen was on the right end of some truly fine margins in qualifying (in third, 0.31s behind second but just 0.075s ahead of seventh) - and those margins were immediately cancelled out at the start.

The run to Abbey is not conspicuously long by any means - but tipping into the corner Verstappen was already sixth instead of third. He briefly got himself back into the mix in that podium battle, but for him it was a losing battle.

The consolation is that even holding third from the start might have led to the same outcome anyway... which, come to think of it, isn't great 'consolation', is it? - VK

Winner: Lando Norris (3rd)

The fastest driver-and-car combo finished first. The second-fastest driver-and-car combo finished second. But Lando Norris and his McLaren feel like they punched above their weight here - and it's Norris who gets the full credit.

He was irritated at the finish - "good job... just, f**k me, guys, just get it right for once, please" - seemingly in relation to having needed to fuel-save. 

But third was the best result on offer, and third was the result he ended up with, maximising a good start and opportunistic driving early in the race that allowed him to run his pace while potentially faster cars behind squabbled for position. - VK

Winner: Liam Lawson (8th)

Given there is such a clear top four teams in F1 right now, any midfield car that scores points in a sprint race is a winner, especially without the assistance of reliability woes. 

Liam Lawson quickly moved into an eighth place that he wasn't ever going to give up easily - with Lawson putting a big squeeze on Hadjar into Stowe.

The stewards will determine whether Lawson went too far when he reports to his summons after the sprint race.

It certainly looked like a…robust defence. But given that ninth place doesn't pay out any points in the sprint, it may have been a risk worth taking for Lawson. - JS

Loser: Isack Hadjar (9th)

Hadjar hasn't scored in any of the four 2026 sprint races so far, and that won't change without some help from the stewards in their judgment of Lawson's robust defence. 

Hadjar was in that position because of a poor start (a big weakness of the Red Bull this year), but it was worsened by qualifying slowest of the top four teams.

That's always going to leave you vulnerable to the midfield and - as we've seen in the past with second Red Bull drivers - fighting hammer and tongs with the very driver you replaced in the senior team. - JS

Loser: Sergio Perez (22nd)

Sergio Perez's race unravelled badly in the first couple of laps, first dropping behind both Aston Martins at the start then, after dispatching Lance Stroll into Stowe, clattering into Fernando Alonso at Turn 3 on lap two and being hit with a time penalty for causing a collision.

It was an unnecessary error from Perez, clipping the left-rear of Alonso's car hard enough to cause the Aston Martin to spin thanks to his vague but uncommitted move up the inside. 

He brought himself into the pits at the end of the lap despite assurances that the car "looks OK" over the radio, with Cadillac opting for a nose change. Perez also suspected he had suffered brake overheating, although he was able to continue. 

He finished last, 11.289s behind Stroll once the time penalty was applied. - Edd Straw

Winners: Fans of yo-yo racing

The energy-starved, high-speed nature of Silverstone, especially the long stretch from Copse to Stowe, means we're seeing see-saw, battery dominated style of racing most reminiscent of the season-opener in Melbourne.

For fans of yo-yo-ing, this sprint race must have been a welcome tonic after the more classical style of grands prix we saw recently in Monaco, Barcelona and Austria, which were more driver/tyre/chassis biased.

The first half of the race featured plenty of yo-yo-ing among the top order, with Antonelli, Norris, Russell, Verstappen, Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc all swapping positions until things settled down.

Sprint races historically have been quite processional, but this one was pretty lively for the first 75% or so - if you like that sort of thing. - Ben Anderson

Losers: Critics of battery-dominated racing

Not a good day for those who don't enjoy racing that is completely dominated by batteries and energy starvation.

The drivers were toeing the PR line much better today, with Hamilton and Norris saying the driving experience through the most energy-starved parts of the circuit were "not as bad as expected" from the pre-event simulations.

But that doesn't mean it felt great. The engine notes were still dying horribly from the exit of Copse, towards the Maggotts/Becketts complex, with a brief bit of low-gear assisted energy recovery for the first part of Hangar Straight before it happened again and the cars limped through Stowe and towards the Club chicane.

This led to plenty of what Alonso calls ‘accident avoidance' overtakes - witness the race-winning move by Antonelli on Hamilton before Stowe, or Russell's double pass of the McLarens before and entering the Club chicane.

Certainly there was action, and it nicely pumps up F1's overtaking stats, but even overpowered DRS passes weren't this easy… - BA