Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton drove a faultless British Grand Prix to secure his fifty seventh career victory, his fifth at the Silverstone Circuit to equal Alain Prost and Jim Clark, fourth in succession to equal Jim Clark once again and his fourth win of the 2017 season.
It was also the British drivers' fifth career Grand Slam, claiming pole, the victory, fastest lap and leading every lap of the Grand Prix.
What made it an even better day for his Mercedes team however, was teammate Valtteri Bottas fighting his way back from ninth on the grid to finish in a brilliant second place, the team's second one two finish of the season. Lewis win on Sunday also marks the 70th victory for the Mercedes-AMG Silver in Formula One.
“This is a sport that asks so much of the people who compete in it, drivers and teams alike, and it is on days like these that it repays every tiny bit of effort one hundred fold,” sais Mercedes man James Allison. “They are beyond description in the degree of pleasure, satisfaction and joy that they bring us all."
"Lewis has all but wiped out the deficit to Vettel in one hammer blow and the team has taken another big leaps in the constructors' race thanks to a tremendous display from Valtteri, whose work this afternoon completely erased the gearbox penalty he was forced to take this weekend. It feels like we are starting to build some good momentum in recent races and hopefully we can deliver the same sort of performance in two weeks' time before heading into the summer break."
"Our work in the next fortnight will focus on optimising every single detail so that we arrive in Hungary prepared for all of the challenges that race can throw at us.”
Rounding out the podium was the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen.
However, while this race was not as exciting as Baku, it wasn't far off it with a brilliant battle between the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel and the Red Bull of Max Verstappen in the early stageds aftert the Red Bull driver made a brilliant start to slot into P3 between the two Ferrari's. Vettel wasn't going to sit idly by and let the Dutchman have the position however and he fought tooth and nail until he finally pitted and took the place using the undercut.
Meanwhile, Aussie driver Daniel Ricciardo, who started down in nineteenth place after a gearbox penaltry and failing to set a time in the second session of qualifying after the turbo went on his RB13, fought his way up several places at the start before making a minor error and dropping back to 17th. From there his Aussie determination kicked in and he continued to fight his way forward, eventually finishing in fifth place, behind his teammate in fourth. Verstappen meanwhile, was forced to pit on the penultimate lap due to wear on his Pirelli rubber.
"It was a great performance from both of our drivers at Silverstone,” said Christian Horner. “Max thankfully ran to the finish and provided a lot of entertainment in his rigorous defence in the duel with Sebastian which was firm but fair racing. Stopping early on a one stop strategy we always thought the tyres would be quite marginal at the end."
Kimi Raikkonen had a similar issue with his tyre actually getting a puncture not far from pit entry, the reason Red Bull pulled Verstappen in when they did, to prevent the same thing happening.
"As soon as we saw Kimi having issues with his tyres, without being able to have track position on him, we decided to make the stop and Max did a good job in bringing the car home and seeing the chequered flag for the first time since Monte Carlo. Daniel's recovery drive today was excellent, making up a lot of places in the early laps he then lost out at Luffield and had to do it all again, and to go from 20th to fifth was a great turnaround from yesterday's problems," Horner concluded.
However, there was such a huge gap back to the sixth placed Renault of Nico Hulkenberg, Kimi managed to selvage a podium finish, but only after his teammate, Sebastian Vettel, suffered a more serious puncture and dropped from third to seventh.
“Even if the reasons are obvious, complaining about losing a second and a fourth place is not Ferrari's style,” said Ferrari's Maurizio Arrivabene. “Today, the hard fact is that we lost a lot of points in both the Constructors' and Drivers' championships. We leave here, set on improving quickly, with humility and determination.”
As a result of Sebastian's woes, Lewis closed the gap to Sebastian Vettel down to just a single point in the Drivers' Championship, with Valtteri a further 23 points back in P3. Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport continues to lead the Constructors' Championship by 55 points from Ferrari in P2.
