Hamilton takes record sixth victory

Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton hailed his home fans after celebrating a record sixth British Grand Prix win on Sunday and stretching his lead over luckless Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas to 39 points.

Bottas, on pole position, finished a distant second after a safety car period turned the race decisively in Hamilton’s favour by handing the home favourite a free pitstop. It was Hamilton’s seventh win in 10 races this season and 80th of his career.

The five-times world champion, now on 223 points to Bottas’s 184, also banged in a late fastest lap, on a set of tyres that had already done 30 laps, to secure an extra point.

“Ah, what a day! I love you Silverstone,” Hamilton said over the radio after rapper Stormzy had waved the chequered flag, with Bottas 24.9sec behind.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was third after teammate Sebastian Vettel rammed into the back of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.

Vettel, who had been third but finished 16th, had to pit for a new front wing and collected a 10sec time penalty for causing the collision.

Victory lifted Hamilton clear of Frenchman Alain Prost and the late Jim Clark, who both won five times in Britain, and the champion pulled over to collect a Union Jack from a marshal on his cool-down lap.

“I can’t tell you how proud I am to be here today,” declared Hamilton, interviewed by 2009 champion Jenson Button after parking up.

“So many British flags out there and I could see them lap after lap. Every year I’ve been coming I’ve seen it and noticed it and appreciated it. You’d think you’d get used to something like that but I tell you, it feels like the first time.”

Hamilton and Bottas battled for the first few laps, with the Finn losing and retaking the lead, but the decisive moment came when Italian Antonio Giovinazzi spun his Alfa Romeo into the gravel on lap 20.

Bottas had pitted three laps earlier but Hamilton had yet to come in for fresh tyres and was able to take advantage and pit without losing position for hard tyres that took him to the finish.

Behind the Mercedes pair, 21-year-olds Leclerc and Verstappen kept the crowd enthralled with a wheel-towheel reprise of their duel in Austria two weeks earlier. Time and again they battled for position, their positioning inch perfect. /