'Daniel celebrates Silverstone milestone with high five’

At the circuit where he made his F1 debut 10 years ago, Daniel raced to a season-best fifth at the British GP. 

A pause to remember the past, a strong sign for the future; 10 years after he made his F1 debut for HRT at Silverstone in 2011, Daniel earned a season-best 10 points after a strong run to fifth in Sunday's British Grand Prix, a weekend that was a throwback to familiar times, and a nod to what might become F1's future.

Those familiar times? Some 140,000 fans packed the circuit that played host to the first-ever F1 Grand Prix in 1950 on race day, a welcome return after two races at Silverstone last year were held in front of empty grandstands. Less familiar? The British Grand Prix marked the first-ever trial of the Sprint Qualifying format set to take place at three events this year, with the grid for Sunday's race set after a 100-kilometre, 17-lap dash on Saturday. 

"The Sprint and what that did for the weekend – I thought it was cool to have a Friday that was more intense, and qualifying on Friday was definitely a good thing," Daniel says in reflecting on a very different format than everyone is accustomed to.

"Having an extra race start to do on Saturday was enjoyable too. The whole weekend felt more intense as a whole so I don't know if you'd want to be applying this to a triple-header, because we'd all be completely knackered afterwards! Maybe the Sprint could have been an even shorter race, but all in all I'd say so far, so good." 

Daniel's weekend was the epitome of taking things step by step; seventh in qualifying on Sunday evening, he gained a place in the Sprint to start Sunday's race proper in sixth, which he then converted to fifth after 52 laps in glorious British summer sunshine. 

"Better late than never, I guess!" Daniel grins about his maiden top-five finish for McLaren. 

"On paper, I was happy as it was a solid weekend. It took a little longer than I thought to get a top five but nonetheless it's good. It was a smooth weekend. Overall it was solid and a good one to do at home for the team". 

Sunday's race began with a small tap before a bigger bang; in the frantic moments after the start, Daniel made slight contact with the Alpine of Fernando Alonso, which saw smoke coming from his car early on the opening lap. It was a lap that didn’t get much past Turn 9 though, after title protagonists Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) and Max Verstappen (Red Bull) came together at Copse, Verstappen crashing heavily into the barrier and causing a red flag which paused the race. 

"I got told about the smoke afterwards but the team never said anything," he says. 

"I did feel a little hit from Fernando in Turn 4, but I think everything was alright."

When action eventually resumed, Daniel sat in fifth but fell away from the leading quartet before his pit stop on lap 20, re-joining in ninth. 

"We were just slow in the first stint, we were running quite hot on tyres and I was basically sliding and couldn't really go any quicker," he explains. 

"That stint, that's something we still need to look into, and I'll be speaking with the team this week once we've dived into some data to understand the reason for that." 

Daniel moved back up to fifth after his rivals pitted, and then came the hard part – resisting the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz. For the final 23 laps of the race, the Spaniard tried to find a way though in a clearly faster car, but Daniel held firm. 

"It kept me busy because Ferrari were pretty quick!" he says. 

"One little mistake and Carlos would have got me, so it was about keeping it clean. He got close but he was never alongside, he never got that close. I covered a few times, but nothing too crazy."

Those 10 points earned for fifth kept McLaren in third place in the constructors' championship, while Daniel retained eighth in drivers' standings with 50 points ahead of the final race before the mid-season break, the Hungarian Grand Prix on August 1. 

The Hungaroring has been a happy hunting ground in Daniel's past; he's enjoyed a win (2014) and two other podiums at the twisting circuit just outside Budapest, and has set the fastest race lap twice. This year's Hungarian GP will be Daniel's 199th start, equalling the number of races contested by one of the sport's all-time greats, Alain Prost.

"It's been a few years since I had a really good result there, but I'm not sure that's down to anything in particular … I definitely enjoy it there," he says of Budapest.

"It's completely different to Silverstone, a lot more braking and a lot more slow corners. My aim is to have another solid weekend there, and that would give me a nice little summer break and I could go into that with some confidence that I'm starting to get a bit more speed in more different types of circuits. It'll bring some challenges, but I'm looking forward to it."