Four in a row for Hami
Silverstone, July 16: Lewis Hamilton swept to his fourth consecutive victory at the British Grand Prix on Sunday to move within a single point of world championship leader Sebastian Vettel.
In a dramatic race packed with incident, Vettel suffered a late puncture and finished seventh for Ferrari after his teammate Kimi Raikkonen also pitted with a similar problem in the closing stages.
Hamilton’s victory, a record-equalling fifth in his home event and the 57th of his career, rebooted his title challenge as he came home ahead of team-mate Valtteri Bottas, who started ninth, in a dominant Mercedes one-two finish.
Raikkonen was third for Ferrari, after the Italian team had made a strategic gamble with their tyres, ahead of Max Verstappen and his Red Bull team mate Daniel Ricciardo, who had started 19th on the grid.
Nico Hulkenberg finished sixth for Renault ahead of Vettel, Esteban Ocon and his Force India teammate Sergio Perez and Felipe Massa, who came home 10th for Williams.
Hamilton made a perfect getaway under heavy grey skies while Vettel had flames leaping from his Ferrari’s brake drum, a distraction that did nothing to stop Verstappen passing him for third on the opening lap.
The two Toro Rosso cars clashed at Chapel where Carlos Sainz spun off into retirement, having collided with Daniil Kvyat’s car. The Spaniard also made contact with Kevin Magnussen’s Haas. After an investigation, the stewards gave Kvyat a drive-through penalty.
This accident brought out the safety car for four laps before racing resumed with Hamilton back in control ahead of Raikkonen and Verstappen while Ricciardo climbed to 12th. Bottas was soon up to fifth with a set of clean passes.
Vettel, frustrated by his inability to pass the Verstappen, pitted after 19 laps and rejoined sixth, but moved ahead when Verstappen pitted the following lap and came out behind the German.
By lap 24, Hamilton had a cushion of more than 10 seconds on Raikkonen but knew Bottas was a threat too as the only top driver to have started on softs rather than super-softs.
He rejoined in front of his team-mate and the pair led the field with Raikkonen third ahead of Vettel, the Ferraris waiting for Bottas to pit.
He finally came in at the end of lap 32 and rejoined fourth behind the Ferraris on fresh supersoft tyres. There was further bad luck for Fernando Alonso though when he retired with yet another engine failure.
The Finn tried to pass him on lap 42, when Vettel defended his position, but succeeded a lap later by surging past on Hangar Straight into Stowe as the German’s tyres faded.
And then with two laps remaining, Raikkonen suffered a left-front puncture and had to pit, gifting Bottas second place and Vettel third before the German also suffered the same fate.