Lewis Hamilton enjoyed the perfect day on Sunday, winning the British Grand Prix for a second time.
Exactly six years on from winning at Silverstone in a McLaren, Hamilton won his home race for Mercedes in somewhat of a shock victory.
Whilst Hamilton would have still harboured hopes of winning from sixth on the grid after his blunder in qualifying, realistically he was probably expecting to once again finish behind his team-mate, a one-two finish for the team with Rosberg winning would have seen the Mercedes drivers head for Germany with Rosberg holding a 36 point lead.
With Mercedes dominance over the field, that was probably the best scenario Hamilton could have wished for.
He still set his sights on the victory though and a good start away from the grid saw him sneak up the grid past the Force India of Nico Hulkenberg, before beating Sebastian Vettel in the following few corners.
A huge crash involving Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen brought out the red flag for around an hour, which meant Hamilton’s charge continued following a safety car re-start.
The McLaren’s were next for Hamilton, first it was Magnussen who outbroke himself gifting Hamilton third place, before fellow Brit Jensen Button gave Hamilton plenty of room to take second place on lap 4.
The gap between the two Mercedes drivers remained consistent until both stopped for their first pit-stop. With Rosberg sticking to the white medium compound tyre and Hamilton switching to the orange hard tyre.
This strategy should have favoured Rosberg as Vettel had previously opted to run a very short stint on these tyres following the red flag.
However Hamilton made this set of tyres work and he was hunting down Rosberg at around a second a lap.
It looked a matter of time before Hamilton would be racing Rosberg wheel-to-wheel for the lead, but a gearbox issue for Nico Rosberg meant that the German had to retire on lap 29 for the first time this season.
Hamilton flew past as Rosberg tried every setting available to him on the steering wheel, not knowing that it was a mechanical fault.
Hamilton went on to cruise to victory and the resulting shift in points has left Hamilton trailing his team-mate by just 4 points in the Formula One World Championship.
?Winning in front of your home crowd is just the best feeling. We really do have the greatest fans here and thank you so much to everyone for your patience after [qualifying].’ Hamilton told formula1.com.
‘To see the support all around the track is just amazing. I said before that I’d never give up but it was a tough qualifying and I really needed to dig deep and come back positive this morning. A huge thank you to my family and all of the fans for pushing me on – I couldn’t have done it without them.
‘Nico had a pretty big gap at the beginning of the race but I kept pushing and was happy with my pace. After extending my first stint, we switched to the prime tyres and I honestly couldn’t believe the pace that I had and was closing up to Nico. Of course, he then had a problem and I saw him pull over. It’s a shame for the team and I never want to see a team-mate fall behind – I always want to battle it out – but I’m sure we will get to do it again in the future.
‘It’s been a rollercoaster weekend and to come away with the win after a day like yesterday is fantastic, so thank you to everyone in the team for all their hard work. I’m proud to have done it for them here – so close to our factories in Brackley and Brixworth.?
