Silverstone Stats - Hamilton joins Clark in two exclusive clubs

Another year, another Lewis Hamilton victory at Silverstone. His win may have sliced Sebastian Vettel’s championship lead to just one point – but it was more significant than that…

• Before this year, only two drivers had won five British Grands Prix – Jim Clark and Alain Prost. Lewis Hamilton matched them on Sunday with his fourth successive home victory – a feat only Clark had managed previously.

• Clark holds the record for the most Grand Slams (pole, fastest lap, win, led every lap) in F1 history with eight, so it was somewhat appropriate that Hamilton matched the double world champion's British win tally with a Grand Slam performance of his own. The Mercedes driver now has five career Grand Slams – tied for the second-most of all-time with Michael Schumacher and Alberto Ascari.

• But there’s more on the Grand Slam front. Three of Hamilton’s four wins this season have now come in this fashion, tying Ascari (1952), Clark (1963 & 1965) and Nigel Mansell (1992) for most Grand Slams in a single season. Will he set a new benchmark before the year is out?

• Some other notes on Hamilton: it was his 57th win, his 110th podium finish and his 162nd finish in the points, matching Jenson Button (who interviewed him on the podium) for joint fourth all-time. On Saturday he also took his fifth British Grand Prix pole - again matching Clark's record. Michael Schumacher's all-time pole record of 68 is now just one away...

• Behind Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas came home second to complete both Mercedes’ second one-two of the season and their second ever at Silverstone. For Bottas, it was his second career podium finish at Silverstone, and just like his first this one came from outside the top four rows on the grid. In 2014 he finished second from 14th on the grid – this year he started ninth.

• Kimi Raikkonen ensured that there were two Finns on the British Grand Prix podium for the first time ever as he overcame a late tyre deflation to finish third. It was the Iceman’s sixth Silverstone podium, but his first since 2007 when he also started on the front row of the grid with Lewis Hamilton. That year the Briton finished third as Kimi won; this year they traded places.

• Raikkonen’s podium was his 36th for Ferrari, equalling his tally for McLaren and tying Felipe Massa for the fourth-most for the Prancing Horse. Only Fernando Alonso (44), Rubens Barrichello (55) and Michael Schumacher (116) have stood on the rostrum more for the Scuderia.

• And one more stat on podiums: the Silverstone podium was the 'oldest' of the season so far, with the average age of the three protagnists 32 years, 8 months and 18 days. That's still a long way short of F1's oldest podium, which came at the 1950 Swiss Grand Prix and was 46 years, 8 months and 20 days...

• It’s been a tough year for Max Verstappen, as evidenced by the fact that his fourth place represented his best result in nine races. The Dutchman was one of three drivers celebrating 50 race starts at Silverstone, but the only one to do so with points - the others, Carlos Sainz and Kevin Magnussen, both left Britain empty handed. Incidentally Verstappen has 310 points from his 50 starts, Sainz 93 and Magnussen 73.

• Verstappen finished one place ahead of Red Bull team mate Daniel Ricciardo, who’s podium streak was stopped at five. However the Aussie did finish in the top five for the sixth race in a row, despite starting P19, and that’s the eighth time in his 119-race career that he’s scored points from 15th or lower on the grid.

• And on the subject of scoring points, Nico Hulkenberg did it for the fifth time this season, equalling his best finish of sixth from Spain. The German has finished all seven races he’s started in Britain, but this was his highest placing. On the flip side, Renault team mate Jolyon Palmer has never finished his home race, having DNF’d last year and failed to even make it to the start this year. That’s four retirements this year for the unlucky Brit, who has not exactly had a bulletproof car in practice or qualifying either.

• Some might have thought Sebastian Vettel would be cursing his luck with seventh place, but the German was surprisingly philosophical about it, despite it representing his lowest finish since… yes, you guessed it, last year’s British Grand Prix (when he was ninth). Since then he’d finished in the top six in all but one race (Malaysia, where he retired).

• At one stage it looked like Vettel’s tyre problem might drop him even lower down the order, but as it was he finished ahead of the Force Indias of Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez, who gave the Silverstone-based team their eighth double points score in ten races. On the flip side Haas missed out on getting a car home in the top ten for the first time in six races, while Lance Stroll saw his three-race point streak come to an end as he placed 16th – his joint lowest finish of the year.

• And speaking of three-race streaks, Daniil Kvyat has now been directly or indirectly involved in first lap incidents in three straight races. In Azerbaijan he narrowly avoided hitting Massa at the first corner before re-joining the track ahead of team mate Sainz, who spun in avoidance. Then in Austria the Russian triggered a three-car crash with Fernando Alonso and Max Verstappen, before causing another three-car incident at Silverstone involving Sainz and Magnussen. Kvyat now has nine penalty points on his licence and won’t lose any until October. Remember, 12 points within a 12-month period triggers an automatic one-race ban…