Lewis Hamilton scored a popular win in front of the fanatical home fans at the British Grand Prix.
By winning at Silverstone, Hamilton is now within four points of his Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg.
Rosberg led for half the race until a gearbox problem forced him to retire his Mercedes from a race for the first time this season.
Hamilton capitalised on this opportunity to snatch victory in his home race, making up for mistakenly aborting his final flying lap in qualifying and thereby reducing the points gap to his Silver Arrows rival with this result.
It was looking good for Rosberg, who converted pole position into the lead as fellow front-row starter Sebastian Vettel made a slow getaway and slipped down to fourth, behind the quick-starting McLarens of Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen.
Hamilton also made a decent start from sixth on the grid, jumping Nico Hulkenberg’s Force India and go around the outside of Vettel through Village corner to snatch fourth, briefly banging wheels with the reigning world champion on his way past.
But then the British Grand Prix was forced to a halt when Kimi Raikkonen crashed his Ferrari heavily on the Wellington Straight.
The Iceman lost control of his F14 T over a bump as he rejoined the track after running wide at Aintree, striking the barrier on the right-hand side and spinning back across the track.
Kamui Kobayashi was lucky not to hit the spinning Ferrari as the Caterham driver took avoiding action.
Felipe Massa’s Williams was also damaged heavily when it clipped the Ferrari as Massa tried to avoid hitting head on.
Raikkonen reported ankle pain as he climbed from his car, while Massa retired his Williams back to the pits with suspension damage.
The British Grand Prix resumed behind the Safety Car after an hour delay to repair the damaged barrier, and Rosberg sprinted away at the restart as Hamilton worked to get past the McLarens.
The 2008 world champion made short work of the task, helped by Magnussen running wide at Copse on lap three. Hamilton soon got by Button into Brooklands on the next lap, to the cheers from the home crowd.
By then Rosberg had opened out a four-second lead and he looked comfortable until the closing stages of the first stint, when Hamilton began to attack.
Hamilton was attempting to beat his team-mate with an alternative strategy, running longer than Rosberg on the medium tyre and switching to the hard compound for his second stint.
But that strategy became a non-issue when a gearbox problem forced Rosberg out shortly after his first pitstop.
This was Nico Rosberg’s first non-finish of the season. Despite this set back, he still leads the world championship.
Hamilton was thus left clear to cruise to a comfortable 28.9-second victory over the Williams of Valtteri Bottas, who charged superbly from P14 on the grid to finish second.
The determination from Bottas was outstanding and to record a podium finish is a wonderful achievement for himself and the team.
Daniel Ricciardo – who started eighth in his Red Bull – and Button successfully executed one-stop strategies to finish third and fourth.
And yet the main entertainment was between Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso – with the latter receiving a five-second stop-go penalty for starting out of position – for fifth.
Both champions complained of the other exceeding track limits and driving unfairly, but Vettel – on fresher tyres after two-stopping to Alonso’s one – eventually prevailed by diving up the inside of his rival on the exit of Luffield and completing the pass at Copse in the closing stages.
Magnussen was out played by both Alonso and Vettel in on-track battles, and trailed the champions down in seventh place in his one-stopping McLaren.
Hulkenberg took home four points for eighth place in a Force India that looked short on grip throughout the race, while Toro Rosso made up for its recent run of chronic unreliability by rounding out the points scorers in ninth and tenth.
Daniil Kvyat fell just 0.6 seconds short of beating Hulkenberg, but headed home team-mate Jean-Eric Vergne, who was delayed by tagging P11 Force India of Sergio Perez on the first run through Abbey after the start.
So an entertaining and exciting British Grand Prix which resulted in a popular win for the Lewis Hamilton. The Mercedes driver achieved his 27th Grand Prix win and his second at the Silverstone, six years to the day he won for McLaren.
It’s going to be fascinating to see if Nico Rosberg can strike back at his home race at Hockenheim in a fortnight’s time but this result for Hamilton was crucial. It’s game on for the championship.
British Grand Prix, race results after 52 laps:
1. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 2h26m52.094s
2. Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes +30.135s
3. Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault +46.495s
4. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes +47.390s
5. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault +53.864s
6. Fernando Alonso Ferrari +59.946s
7. Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes +1m02.563s
8. Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes +1m28.692s
9. Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso-Renault +1m29.340s
10. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Renault -1 lap
11. Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes -1 lap
12. Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault -1 lap
13. Adrian Sutil Sauber-Ferrari -1 lap
14. Jules Bianchi Marussia-Ferrari -1 lap
15. Kamui Kobayashi Caterham-Renault -2 laps
16. Max Chilton Marussia-Ferrari -2 laps
17. Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Renault -3 laps
Retirements:
Nico Rosberg Mercedes 28 laps
Marcus Ericsson Caterham-Renault 11 laps
Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari 9 laps
Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 1 laps
Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 0 laps
Drivers’ championship:
1. Nico Rosberg 165
2. Lewis Hamilton 161
3. Daniel Ricciardo 98
4. Fernando Alonso 87
5. Valtteri Bottas 73
6. Sebastian Vettel 70
7. Nico Hulkenberg 63
8. Jenson Button 55
9. Kevin Magnussen 35
10. Felipe Massa 30
11. Sergio Perez 28
12. Kimi Raikkonen 19
13. Jean-Eric Vergne 9
14. Romain Grosjean 8
15. Daniil Kvyat 6
16. Jules Bianchi 2
Constructors’ championship:
1. Mercedes 326
2. Red Bull-Renault 168
3. Ferrari 106
4. Williams-Mercedes 103
5. Force India-Mercedes 91
6. McLaren-Mercedes 90
7. Toro Rosso-Renault 15
8. Lotus-Renault 8
9. Marussia-Ferrari 2
10. Sauber-Ferrari 0
11. Caterham-Renault 0
Next race: German Grand Prix, Hockenheim. July 18-20.
By winning the British Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton says he’s back on par with Nico Rosberg in the fight for world championship honours. Autosport.com has the full story.
Lewis Hamilton believes he is back on terms with Nico Rosberg in the Formula 1 title race following his victory in the British Grand Prix.
The Mercedes driver won his home race for the second time in his career, and closed to just four points behind team-mate Rosberg in the standings after the German retired with a gearbox failure.
Hamilton, who has suffered two retirements already this season, said after the race that he can focus on a straight fight with Rosberg now the gap has been closed in the championship.
“I came into this weekend saying it would be great if the fans could put the wind in my sails to regain the momentum,” said Hamilton.
“I got the win today and got the points back. I have been chasing all year after losing points in the first race; it has been very, very difficult.
“Now I feel we are back and close, and with the pace I had today I feel I have to focus for the next part of the season.
“Today I felt from the start I had the pace of Nico, and I was hunting him down like never before.
“I was looking forward to a wheel-to-wheel battle, but I’m sure we’ll get more in the future.”
Hamilton added that his costly mistake of abandoning his final lap in qualifying served as a wake-up call ahead of Sunday’s race.
“Yesterday was a kick in the balls and I had to pick myself up,” he said.
“I had to pull up my socks and get on with it if I wanted to win this championship.
“I cannot have situations like yesterday, in the last two races I had the pace for pole but I made it harder for myself and I will try not to do that again in the future.
“Yesterday was a really difficult day – I went away feeling terrible for the fans because I let them down, and the team, and myself.
“To turn that emptiness and negativity into a positive today was my main priority.”
Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo says Jenson Button needed one more lap for third place. The Australian was able to resist the challenge to score a podium finish at the British Grand Prix. Autosport.com has the details.
Daniel Ricciardo believes McLaren Formula 1 rival Jenson Button would have beaten him to the final British Grand Prix podium place had the race been a lap longer.
The Australian jumped ahead of the 2009 world champion with an earlier pitstop and ultimately denied the Briton a maiden home-race podium by less than a second.
Ricciardo had to make his hard-compound tyres last 37 laps after Red Bull switched him to a one-stop strategy mid-race, but he held on despite Button slashing an eight-second advantage to almost nothing in the final four laps.
“I think one more lap would have been tough because Jenson was coming,” Ricciardo admitted.
“I’m really happy with the podium. I knew we were a better car than eighth on the grid.
“I was a bit surprised during the first bit to not be as quick so I said let’s try something different to make it work.
“Today I was pretty jacked up, so it’s nice to be up here.”
Button, who had started the race third and ran second in the early laps, reckoned another lap was all he needed because it would have put him within DRS range.
Despite missing out on the podium, he praised the progress made in the last two races to enable him to fight the Red Bulls and lone Ferrari of Fernando Alonso at a circuit he had expected to struggle.
“If I got DRS on the next lap it would’ve been easier” he said. “I would have given it a good go anyway.
“But it didn’t happen. It would’ve been the perfect podium with Lewis up there and myself.
“We almost beat two Red Bulls and a Ferrari today, so that’s a step forward. We didn’t expect to be good here, we didn’t expect to be OK round here.
“We expected to be reasonably bad round here; it was a bogey track for us.
“It doesn’t matter where you expected to be, if you are so close to a podium and don’t get it, you’re upset.”
Sauber Formula 1 driver Esteban Gutierrez has been handed a three-place grid penalty for the German Grand Prix following a collision with Pastor Maldonado at Silverstone.
The Mexican ran in to the side of his Lotus rival during their British Grand Prix battle on the entry to Club Corner, with their clash of wheels flicking Maldonado in to the air.
Following a post-race investigation into the matter, the stewards decided that Gutierrez had caused the crash, which was almost an exact mirror of their incident in the Bahrain Grand Prix, which ended in the Sauber rolling over.
A statement issued by the FIA said: “Having viewed all the video available and having heard from the drivers, the Stewards determined that the driver of car 21 [Gutierrez] was predominantly at fault, causing a collision at Turn 16 between him and the driver of car 13 [Maldonado].”
Although stewards have been instructed to be more lenient in terms of handing out punishments for collisions, they will still impose penalties for incidents where one driver is clearly to blame.
Source: Autosport.com