After early crash, Hamilton captures British Grand Prix
Lewis Hamilton roared back from a firstlap incident that sent Formula 1 leader Max Verstappen to the hospital and overcame a 10second penalty to win the British Grand Prix in Silverstone, England, on Sunday.
Hamilton, a seventime champion, won at his home track to snap a run of five races without a victory and slash Verstappen’s series lead from 33 points to eight.
“Did I think that we would ever be back in the title fight? I prayed and hoped for it, but I thought that it would be a long slog to try and regain any of the points,” Hamilton said. “We’re now closer. He’s still got quite a few points ahead but the race is on.”
This season’s title battle boiled over on one of the hottest days of the year, in front of 140,000 fans at a packed Silverstone, with the terrifying incident that saw the race redflagged and Hamilton given a penalty.
And Verstappen, 23, fuming in a hospital.
“Glad I’m ok. Very disappointed with being taken out like this,” Verstappen posted on Twitter. “The penalty given does not help us and doesn’t do justice to the dangerous move Lewis made on track.
“Watching the celebrations while still in hospital is disrespectful and unsportsmanlike behavior but we move on.”
Verstappen left the hospital later Sunday “without any major injuries,” his Red Bull team said.
Hamilton dropped from second to fifth as he served his penalty, but he swiftly picked up two spots when he returned to the track and then Valtteri Bottas was ordered to move out of his Mercedes teammate’s way.
That gave Hamilton 11 laps to chase down leader Charles Leclerc, and Hamilton made the pass with two laps to go.
NASCAR: In a race that was delayed nearly two hours by rain and called eight laps early due to darkness, Aric Almirola held off Christopher Bell to win the Foxwoods Resort Casino 301 in Loudon, N.H.
With his third career victory, Almirola — who began the day 27th in the NASCAR Cup standings with just one topfive and two top10 finishes this season — snared one of the 16 spots in the playoffs.
“There is no doubt we have struggled, but guess what, we’re going playoff racing,” Almirola said in a postrace TV interview. “It feels so good to have something pay off for all of the hard work. I’m just really happy. Man, this means so much.”
NASCAR started the race under wet conditions, and that decision turned into a disaster when polesitter Kyle Busch spun and wrecked six laps into the event.
“It never should have gone green to begin with, but then it kept getting worse and worse lap over lap,” Busch said. “We’ve been talking about it for two laps that it was raining.”