Lewis Hamilton wins British Grand Prix after puncture on last lap
Hamilton’s team-mate Valtteri Bottas also punctured, two laps earlier, which dropped him out of the points.
The Finn finished 11th and dropped to 30 points behind Hamilton in the title race, a potentially devastating blow to his hopes so early in a season truncated by the coronavirus.
McLaren’s Carlos Sainz was a third driver to suffer a left-front puncture, his like Hamilton’s on the last lap, and he dropped from fourth place to 13th.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was promoted from fourth to the final podium spot by the late drama.
The drama started with Bottas suffering a puncture to his Mercedes with two laps to go
It was a remarkable finish to a race that had been soporific until that point, and Hamilton recognised that afterwards, saying over the radio, his voice drenched in relief: “That was close.”
The Mercedes drivers had been nursing their tyres after making an earlier than expected pit stop because of the second of two safety cars.
They stopped to change from medium to hard tyres on lap 13, very early to make it to the
of the race on one set of hard tyres. They were clearly managing their pace from then on, but despite that dark rings appeared on their tyres as the race moved into the closing stages.
But there was no real sign of
the drama to come until Bottas’ left front tyre deflated shortly after starting lap 50, with two to go.
The Finn limped around almost an entire lap and was too far back to get into the points.
Hamilton looked then to be cruising to the flag, until he too suffered a puncture, this time heading down the back straight towards Brooklands. Then it was a question of whether he could get around the remainder of the lap - more than half of it - before Verstappen caught him. -BBC