Vital talking point: Hamilton’s pit, was it luck?

From the start Mercedes were up against it, all of the talk pre-race was about both drivers having different clutches, who had made the best decision? Well it proved to be neither of them as both pole sitter Lewis Hamilton and second placed Nico Rosberg were passed by the Williams duo of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas.

Through the opening sequence of curves Hamilton battled back to get past Bottas, but he couldn’t chase down Massa before the safety car was deployed on the opening lap.

When the safety car pulled in Hamilton tried to take the early advantage but he ran wide as he went for the lead and lost second place back to Bottas.

This left the Williams drivers racing at the front of the pack, team radio asked them not to race, but Bottas challenged for the lead on multiple occasions.

It was clear that with both Massa’s and Bottas’ straight line speed Hamilton’s best hope was to pit early and get some clear running, he made his pit-stop on lap 20 and the following lap both Massa and Rosberg pitted.

They came out of the pit-lane side-by-side and as they squabbled, Hamilton raced clear of them both.

When Massa pitted he got out ahead of Bottas and Rosberg, but Hamilton regained the lead.

As the race looked like it would settle down from this point with Rosberg having no answer for the Williams, the Great British weather played it’s hand and the rain began to fall on the Silverstone track.

The first shower saw some of the track get wetter than other parts and most of the cars stayed out on their slick tyres, those who took the gamble to pit for intermediate wet tyres soon fell behind as it just wasn’t wet enough for those tyres to maintain any performance.

The conditions were perfect for Rosberg, who on lap 38, began to pressurise Bottas for third place. He quickly got past the Finnish racer and within two laps he also got passed Massa.

He then began to hunt down Hamilton and a lead that was once 10.6 seconds quickly fell and Hamilton dived into the pit-lane and switched for intermediates.

It appeared too early, Kimi Raikkonen for Ferrari who had previously changed to intermediates had already ruined his tyres on the mostly dry track. But Hamilton appeared to have little choice as he was about to be swallowed up by a racey Rosberg.

Within minutes the heavens opened and everyone dived in for intermediate wet tyres. Hamilton’s pit choice, by luck or judgement had won him the Grand Prix to the delight of the British crowd.

‘Thank you for coming out today and making my whole weekend, I really wanted to do it for you guys. I couldn’t have done it without you. I’m so elated. You can’t imagine how happy I am. I was tearing up on the last lap.’ Hamilton said on the podium, clutching his precious gold trophy.