Three lions on the rostrum: Every all-British podium in F1 history
- Kavi Khandelwal
- Jun 18
- 4 min read
When Lewis Hamilton crossed the line in Barcelona on Sunday, the clock reset on a 58-year-old wait. There was no Dutch or Italian or Monégasque driver on the steps of the podium.
Just three Britons – Hamilton, George Russell and Lando Norris – standing on a podium that belonged entirely to the United Kingdom for one afternoon.
It was the sixth time in Formula One history that the top three finishers had all carried British passports. Six moments across nearly seven decades of racing. That rarity is the point.
Britain has produced more World Champions than any other nation, filled more podiums than any grid in the sport’s history, and yet those occasions when Britons swept the rostrum clean are few enough to name by hand.
Silverstone, 1958: The accidental sweep
The 1985 British Grand Prix was not supposed to be a British celebration. Stirling Moss had taken pole for Vanwall, and the expectation at Silverstone was that the green machines would dominate on home soil.
Instead it was Peter Collins who led 75 laps in his Ferrari and took the chequered flag, ahead of his teammate Mike Hawthorn in second. Roy Salvadori rounded out the podium in a Cooper-Climax.
Three British drivers from three different teams. None of them expected to sweep the top three. Collins passed away at the German Grand Prix less than a month later, at the Nürburgring. Hawthorn took the championship that year and retired before the following season began, killed in a road accident in January 1959.
The 1958 Silverstone podium, in retrospect, carries the weight of all the things that came after it.
Silverstone, 1963: Clark’s kingdom
By 1963, Jim Clark had turned dominance into something approaching inevitability. He arrived at the British Grand Prix having won four of the opening five races of the season.
He led from lap four, pulling away with the quiet authority that defined his driving. The gap kept growing every time the Lotus-Climax came through Maggotts.
Behind him, John Surtees and Graham Hill fought over second with the kind of intensity that Clark, out front, was entirely insulated from. Surtees edged it on the final run to the line after Hill’s BRM ran dry of fuel and coasted home for third.
In 1963, it was the Clark-Surtees-Hill combination at Silverstone that announced British racing’s stranglehold on the decade.
The sport’s first nation to reach 100 podium finishes had just added three more.
Brands Hatch, 1964: The same three, different order
The British Grand Prix moved to Brands Hatch the following year, and the top three finished in the same names, only rearranged.
Clark won again, from pole again. Graham Hill was second. Surtees, who would take the Drivers’ Championship that year in the closest of finishes, was third.
There is something uncanny about the consistency of it. In 1963, Clark led Hill and Surtees. In 1964, Clark led them again. The same trio, the same circuit country, one year apart.
Silverstone, 1965: The last of the golden trio
The third consecutive all-British podium at a home Grand Prix. Clark won, as he always seemed to win at home. Hill was second. Surtees was third.
The race itself was far less straightforward than the result suggests. Clark, running first with 16 laps remaining, began losing oil pressure and started killing the engine through the fast corners to nurse the car home.
His lead over Hill shrank from 35 seconds to three by the chequered flag. He crossed the line, engine still running, barely. Surtees, third in a Ferrari, was close behind.
Three years in a row, the same three men, the same flag. No British Grand Prix since has produced an all-British podium.
Watkins Glen, 1968: The last one (for 58 years)
The 1968 United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen was a title decider in disguise. Jackie Stewart had kept himself in championship contention heading into the penultimate round, trailing Hill by three points with two races left.
He won. Hill finished second. Surtees, now driving for Honda, completed the top three in what was the most attrited race in recent memory – six cars made it to the chequered flag, with Stewart winning by 24 seconds.
Three champions on the same podium – Stewart, who would win his first title the following year; Hill, who had already won in 1962 and would take it again at season’s end in Mexico; Surtees, the 1964 champion.
No other all-British podium in the sport’s history has assembled three World Champions in a single top three.
It also marked the end of an era. Surtees’ podium at Watkins Glen was the last of his F1 career. Hill’s title defence ended in Mexico the following week. And by 1969, the grid was changing – Jochen Rindt, Jacky Ickx and a generation of non-British drivers were rising.
The podium at Watkins Glen on 6 October 1968 would stand as the last all-British F1 rostrum for 58 years.
Barcelona, 2026: The new class
Three world champions stepped onto the podium at Watkins Glen in 1968. At Barcelona on Sunday, the arithmetic was the same: one seven-time champion, a reigning world champion and a driver yet to win one.
Hamilton’s win for Ferrari – his first in Ferrari colours, 686 days after his 2024 Belgian Grand prix triumph – was built on strategy as much as pace. A Virtual Safety Car (VSC) in the middle stint handed Ferrari a free stop and Hamilton used it mercilessly, building a lead that Russell, starting from pole, could never bridge.
Kimi Antonelli had briefly taken second from Russell in the closing laps before retiring four laps from the finish, leaving Russell to hold second and Norris to consolidate third behind him.
The result was historic for reasons that have nothing to do with fortune – Hamilton drove a superb race – but the architecture of the afternoon, as ever in F1, required more than one thing to go right at once.
Six all-British podiums. 68 years of history between the first and last. Silverstone in 1958, three consecutive home races through the mid-1960s, a rain-thin field at Watkins Glen and now Barcelona in 2026, in a season that still has plenty of racing left.
The record books have been updated. Three lions on the rostrum again.
Edited by Benjamin Crundwell
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