In a class of his own Hamilton storms to success at Silverstone to win record sixth British Grand Prix
Mercedes driver claims sixth British GP triumph 140,000 fans cheer his 80th win in racing’s elite
At a venerable old circuit, in front of the largest crowd of the country’s sporting year, Lewis Hamilton proved beyond doubt that he belonged in a class of one. A record sixth British Grand Prix victory, lifting him clear of Jim Clark and Alain Prost, marked the fulfilment of his lifelong love affair with Silverstone and strengthened his claims to be recognised as the greatest driver that his sport, never mind just his nation, has seen.
“You would think you might get used to something like this,” said a breathless five-time world champion, once he had finished a spot of crowd-surfing. “But to raise your home flag in your country? It is the greatest feeling in the world.” He had close to 60 members of his extended family to savour the glory.
The older Hamilton becomes, the more it means. He has spent so long as a single-minded athlete that the time is right, at 34, for him to start toasting these feats in the company of those closest to him.
He might earn £40 million a year, and he might attract a celebrity entourage far removed from his humble Stevenage upbringing, but Hamilton is still a Formula One fanatic at heart. “Wow,” he mouthed, when reminded that this was his 80th win. “I remember growing up watching the greats. It’s amazing now to be up here with them.”
Hamilton has described Silverstone as the ultimate circuit, the one that F1 can never contemplate losing. This was a day that brought vivid proof of his argument.
Just as he and Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas fought a frantic battle at the front, with Hamilton eventually prevailing courtesy of a shrewdly-timed pit stop behind the safety car, Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen, the two 21-year-old gunslingers, had a mesmerising duel for third, weaving within inches of each other’s wheels through the high-speed corners. This was racing at its purest and most thrilling. Three weeks on from a soporific procession at Circuit Paul Ricard, a contrived testing track, F1 showed off all its finery at Silverstone, the site of the first world championship race in 1950 and still a drivers’ favourite.
If Hamilton had his way, all the races would be staged on layouts of such subtlety and precision, rather than on “Mickey Mouse” circuits, as Verstappen once described more recent additions to the calendar. The winner could not have agreed more. “The drivers have never been a part of the decision-making when it comes to tracks,” he said. “But we know the ones where you can overtake. And this is among the best in the world.”
Sometimes Hamilton’s dominance can be taken for granted. His is a crushing level of superiority: he has won seven of 10 grands prix this season, and he leads the championship by 39 points than Bottas with fewer than half the races gone.
But the 140,000 packed into this old bomber station in Northamptonshire knew precisely what they were witnessing.
The chants of “Lewis, Lewis” resounded through the countryside as he high-fived the fans across a high steel fence.
Hamilton had to do this the difficult way. A mistake in qualifying had caused him to miss out on pole to Bottas by six thousandths of a second, and from the moment the fifth red light went out he was on the Finn’s tail like a man possessed. He appeared briefly to have taken the lead, taking the outside line at Brooklands, before cutting back and passing Bottas at Luffield. His rival, though, would not be deterred, wresting the lead back at Copse corner at 180mph.
It was a compelling tussle between team-mates, in what was comfortably the finest race of 2019 to date. Not that Toto Wolff, Mercedes’s team principal, would quite have seen it that way.
“I don’t think Toto would have enjoyed it,” said Bottas, glumly, frustrated at seeing another chance to close his championship deficit slip by. “Honestly, I don’t know what else to say. It was maybe not my luckiest day, but that’s life.”
Once their scrapping died down a little, Hamilton seized his moment. Bottas’s stop for fresh tyres proved fateful, with the choice of the same medium compound he had used at the start obliging him to stop twice.
Hamilton, however, remained out on track, determined to stick to a one-stop strategy that he was convinced would work.
So it transpired: when the safety car was summoned, after Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi spun off into the gravel at Vale, Hamilton was able to dive in to the pits, rejoin in the lead and surge to the finish essentially untroubled.
Not that he showed any signs of complacency. Hamilton was deep in the zone yesterday, relishing the extreme G-forces of a circuit that he
had driven since childhood. Indeed, he left one of his most impressive accomplishments to the end, securing an extra point for the fastest lap on 30-lap-old hard tyres. No wonder, as he took the chequered flag, he let out a scream of triumph.
“I still remember my first win in 2008,” Hamilton reflected later. “It felt so reminiscent of that today. The happiness and joy I felt today were exactly the same as then. I have done so many races, and you think you would get used to it, or that the feeling would numb, but this felt just as amazing as the first win I had. We are breaking down walls and records, and pushing the boundaries every weekend.”
The luminaries were out in force for Hamilton yesterday, from Daniel Craig to Michael Douglas, Gareth Southgate to Mauricio Pochettino. Silverstone might not have the surface glamour of Monte Carlo, but it had every ounce of the stardust. The true star turn, however, was produced by Hamilton himself.
As Wolff watched his man take the chequered flag with the quickest lap of the day, he said: “I’m still not sure how he did it.” He, just like everyone else, knew he was in the presence of greatness.