Lewis Hamilton overcame a time penalty to claim his fifth British Grand Prix victory, with Sebastian Vettel finishing second and Max Verstappen third.
Lewis Hamilton won the British Grand Prix after overcoming a time penalty.
Lewis Hamilton overcame a 10-second penalty for colliding with championship rival Max Verstappen to overtake Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and win the British Grand Prix in dramatic fashion.
On the opening lap of the race, Hamilton was accused for a collision with Verstappen’s Red Bull at Copse turn, which resulted in the Dutchman crashing out.
After the collision, Verstappen, 23, was transported to the hospital for precautionary testing, while Hamilton focused on winning the race.
After the collision, the Grand Prix was halted with Leclerc in front of Hamilton, and the Ferrari driver maintained that position until two laps from the finish, when the Mercedes driver overtook him, ironically, at the same place where he had collided with Verstappen.
Hamilton’s seventh victory at the British Grand Prix, in front of a crowd of 140,0000, reduces Verstappen’s championship lead to eight points following a race that will go down in Formula One history.
What occurred during the collision?
After a heated fight between the championship contenders on the opening lap, the moment many had predicted would come at some point in this epic duel between Verstappen and Hamilton occurred.
Hamilton, who started second after Verstappen won F1’s inaugural’sprint’ race on Saturday, got out to a better start than Verstappen and was alongside him into the first turn, but the Red Bull driver held him off.
At the end of the Wellington straight, Hamilton pushed ahead into the Brooklands turn, but Verstappen held him off once again.
Hamilton dummied Verstappen down into the 190mph Copse turn, feinting to the outside and then leaping for the inside into the corner.
As they started to turn in, Hamilton had more than half of his vehicle alongside Verstappen, but pulled up somewhat when he saw Verstappen was going to wait it out around the outside, and the Red Bull pushed back ahead.
Hamilton was a bit wide of the apex, and in the midst of the turn, his front left wheel collided with Verstappen’s right rear, sending Verstappen flying into the outside barriers.
After such a strong collision, he got out of the vehicle and began walking about before being brought to the circuit medical facility for obligatory tests. Team manager Christian Horner claimed the impact was 51G.
Later, he was transported to a nearby hospital for “additional precautionary testing,” according to Red Bull.
What happened during the race?
Hamilton’s performance wowed a 140,000-strong audience in temperatures hovering about 30 degrees Celsius.
In the wake of the collision, Leclerc, who had overtaken Hamilton’s teammate Valtteri Bottas off the line, grabbed the lead out of Copse and began the re-started race from pole position.
The Ferraris were fast in the opening stint, and Hamilton was unable to catch up to Leclerc, who was 2.3 seconds ahead when Hamilton pitted on lap 27 to serve his penalty and change tyres, falling behind Bottas and Lando Norris of McLaren.
On lap 31, Hamilton overtook Norris entering Copse, and then moved up on Bottas, who was told to allow Hamilton past on lap 40.
After that, Hamilton had 12 circuits to narrow an eight-second deficit on Leclerc and overtake the Ferrari for the lead.
It seemed to be a huge task based on Leclerc’s speed in the first stint, but Hamilton was quickly lapping a second a lap faster than Leclerc, and he was on the Ferrari’s tail with three circuits to go.
At Copse, he went for the inside, identical to the maneuver that resulted to the Verstappen collision. But Hamilton was more careful, backing off a bit further, and Leclerc then went wide on the exit of the turn, enabling Hamilton to sweep past and extend his British Grand Prix victory record to eight.
What about the rest?
After a fantastic performance, Leclerc finished second, saying that despite his first podium result of the year, he was “very sad” to come so close to winning, while Bottas finished third ahead of Norris.
Daniel Ricciardo of McLaren took fifth place thanks to a pit-stop issue for Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, holding off the quicker Spaniard to the finish line.
Fernando Alonso finished eighth after a great sprint race in which he overtook six cars on the first lap in his Alpine, a starting position he won with a brilliant drive in the sprint race in which he passed six cars on the first lap in his Alpine.
For the most of the race, Alonso held off Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll, while Esteban Ocon of the second Alpine grabbed tenth place ahead of Yuki Tsunoda of Alpha Tauri.
Today’s driver is
In the Ferrari, Leclerc was sensational, setting a blistering pace throughout the race and coming agonizingly close to winning for the first time this season.
What comes next?
There will be a two-week break before the Hungarian Grand Prix, which will be held on one of Hamilton’s favorite tracks and where Verstappen will be looking to retaliate.
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