The race at Silverstone began with carnage at the first corner after Zhou Guanyu's Alfa Romeo flipped upside down, hurtling over the circuit's safety barrier.

'Halo saved me today' says Zhou; as Sainz claims maiden win at Silverstone

Carlos Sainz claimed his maiden Formula One win on his 150th start in a thrilling British Grand Prix at the Silverstone race track on Sunday.



The Ferrari driver kept his cool to beat Sergio Perez of Red Bull and Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes.

World champion Max Verstappen finished seventh but retained the series lead in a race marred by a multi-car pile up at the opening corner.

"I don't know what to say, it's amazing. First race win 150 races later with Ferrari at Silverstone, it's a very special day," said Sainz, who won from pole.

"I think a first win is always a bit of a relief, I'm not going to lie," he said. "The same way the pole position didn't feel like it yesterday, today the win does feel like a bit of a relief. There you have it, you have a win in F1 and for sure I'm going to keep fighting for more."

Behind Sainz there was an epic closing laps battle between Perez, Hamilton and Charles Leclerc.

For Hamilton, this was his 11th race without victory, the seven-time champion's longest losing sequence.

Hamilton, paying tribute to 130,000 fans, said, "I was in amongst that battle but the upgrade we brought here made us closer to them."

"Those final laps were a great fight with Lewis – it has been so long since we had a good fight so it was great to have him back and also with Charles, he was very aggressive but fair and I'm sure the fans enjoyed it," said Perez.



'Halo saved me today,' says Zhou

The race at Silverstone began with carnage at the first corner after Zhou Guanyu's Alfa Romeo flipped upside down, hurtling over the circuit's safety barrier.

George Russell's Mercedes, Alpine's Esteban Ocon, Alpha Tauri's Yuki Tsunoda and the Williams of Alex Albon were also involved.

The Chinese racer's head was saved by his car's roll hoop-halo as it skidded off across a gravel trap and over tire barriers into the catch fencing, where it bounced back to finish semi-upright in a stationary position.

Both Zhou and Albon escaped serious injury in the smash which caused a one-hour delay.

What is halo?

Zhou is not the only driver to have benefited from the life-saving halo.

Also on Sunday, drivers Roy Nissany and Dennis Hauger collided on opening F2 race and were saved by the halo at Silverstone.

Halo is made of titanium and consists of a curved bar surrounding the driver's head. It is connected by three points to the vehicle's frame.

It has been protecting F1 and F2 racers as a mandatory cockpit-fixed safety device since 2018.

"This is not a light piece of work; it is several kilos of titanium that needs to be put in the car," Mercedes technical chief James Allison said in 2018, formula1.com reports.

"We needed to make sure it would be strong enough to withstand the type of event it was designed to protect the driver against."

According to Mercedes, the titanium structures are capable of holding the weight of one of London's iconic double decker buses, which is the equivalent of 12 tonnes balancing on a 7-kilogram metal frame.

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