For the 18th time in 49 world championship races at Silverstone, the home fans had a British winner to cheer on Sunday as Lewis Hamilton used a perfectly-timed switch to intermediate tyres to sweep to victory.
It was Hamilton’s fifth victory of the season, his 38th career win and his third triumph on home soil, meaning he joins Jim Clark and Nigel Mansell as the only Britons to win a hat-trick of races at the high-speed Northamptonshire venue. Only Alain Prost - with five wins - has more victories to his name at Silverstone.
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Hamilton is just the eighth driver to score back to back wins in Britain, and the first since David Coulthard in 1999/2000. He’s also now the sole owner of the record for consecutive races led, having surpassed Sir Jackie Stewart's 45-year-old mark when he moved into the lead for the first time on lap 19. The Mercedes driver has now led 18 consecutive races, dating back to last year’s Grand Prix in Hungary.
Behind Hamilton, Nico Rosberg drove superbly to give Mercedes their sixth one-two of the season, while a brilliant bit of opportunism enabled Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel to overcome both Williams drivers to take the final rostrum spot. Amazingly Hamilton, Rosberg and Vettel have shared the podium places in six of the nine races this season. Vettel meanwhile has now been in the points for 20 consecutive races, and has team mate Kimi Raikkonen’s all-time record of 27 in his sights.
For a while it looked like Williams would score their first double podium at Silverstone since 1992, but in the end Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas had to make do with fourth and fifth, despite having both led at different periods of the race. The Grove-based team hadn’t led their home event since 2002 and it was just the third time since 2004 that both of their drivers had taken turns at leading a single race.
Elsewhere, for the second race in a row - and third time this season - Force India got both drivers home in the points, with Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez crossing the line in seventh and ninth in their heavily revised VJM08s.
That result moved the Silverstone-based team ten points clear of local rivals Lotus in the constructors’ championship standings, as the Enstone squad recorded their second double DNF of the year. McLaren, who saw both of their cars retire in Austria, had a more positive day by contrast, picking up their second points finish of the year through Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard came home tenth to register his first world championship point of the season and his first score for McLaren since the 2007 Brazilian Grand Prix.
