Not all bad weather is bad news because for this race, our car featured a few tweaks to its livery to celebrate teaming up with Warner Bros. to promote the release of “Twisters” a storm chasing current day sequel to the 1996 blockbuster “Twister.” Stars of the film Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell were with us in the garage to add their support on race day.

The now ubiquitous slogan, “Keep Calm and Carry On” could well be applied to how the team has dealt with the challenges of having three Grands Prix in as many weeks, while trying to get the most out of an upgrade package on the VCARB 01 that is taking a bit of time to understand. Undaunted, the engineers and especially the aerodynamicists, most of whom are based not far from Silverstone in our Bicester facility, have worked round the clock to get on top of things.

A few minutes after practice started on Friday, Yuki made life difficult for himself, beaching the car in the gravel at the slowest corner on the track, but he was happy enough with the car, ending the day 16^th fastest. Team-mate Daniel Ricciardo, who made his Formula 1 debut at this very track 14 years ago with the Spanish HRT team, struggled a bit especially in the slow speed sections and was three places further back.

The following day, conditions for qualifying were complex, with all 20 drivers starting on the Intermediate tyres in wet conditions. Yuki’s eventual 13^th place on the grid owed a lot to the team getting its strategy just right in terms of when to switch to slicks, while Daniel ended up just behind his team-mate, 15^th on the grid, having had to deal with traffic on his last quick lap.

How many changes in the weather do you want in a 90 minute Grand Prix? It was dry for the start on Sunday, before the rain put in a brief early appearance, returning some time later, finally making way for what almost felt like a summer’s day to round off the weekend. You need cool heads on the pit wall in these situations and we made all the right calls in terms of when to change tyres. That contributed to Yuki finishing in the points after he made his usual storming start, blasting past a couple of cars on the opening lap to be running eleventh, getting as high as ninth at one point as others pitted.  Daniel made up two places from his start position, but that wasn’t enough to add to his points tally.

We are still sixth in the Constructors’ Championship although the American Haas team is snapping at our heels, just four points behind. The racing on track now takes a two week break before resuming in Hungary, but the off-track development race never stops as we push on, hoping to reassert our early season authority in the midfield, starting in Budapest.