The crowd errupted as Lewis Hamilton won today’s penultimate Silverstone Formula 1 Grand Prix in the pouring rain with a solid performance and clear victory infront of a 90,000 capacity crowd. He is now joint-top f the Championship along with Ferrari’s Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen.
Lewis Hamilton got off to a great start from 4th position, overtaking Mark Webber and Kimi Raikkonen and even ahead of teammate Heikki Kovalainen for a split-second before having to settle for 2nd place. That only last for another 5 laps until he overtook his teammate for good, despite having more fuel.
The most-impressive driver in qualifying, Mark Webber, who started in 2nd place on the grid dropped to 4th at the start before spinning a few corners later and dropping down to 18th. Ferrari’s Felipe Massa also span on the opening lap and then fell back into last position after a 2nd spin on lap 4.
On his final Formula 1 Grand Prix, David Coulthard, who announced his retirement earlier this week’s race lasted just 1 lap before he and Sebastien Vettel clipped each other and ended on the gravel.
On lap 22, both leaders Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen headed into the pits together. Before the pitstops, Raikkonen was flying closing the lead on Hamilton but he came out with the wrong tires and was losing 8 seconds a lap afterwards.
A few laps later and Nick Heidfeld put a lovely move on Fernando Alonso and moved into 3rd.
In the last 25 laps there were numerous spins, one of which cost Nelson Piquet Jr who was having a good race in 5th at the time.
Felipe Massa (for the 3rd time), Mark Webber (for a 2nd time), Kimi Raikkonen (twice) all span but were all fortunate not to cause any damage and continue in the space of 5 laps.
With 20 laps remaining, Robert Kubica span out of the race, Jenson Button retired and Nico Rosberg lost his front wing in the rear of someone’s car (but got safely to the pits for a replacement).
Lewis Hamilton was flying after that on his intermediate tyres with the rain calming down and took a comfortbale victory infront of camera-attention seeking Gordon Ramsay (and his family) and Davina McCall enjoying themselves, watching the race live at Silverstone. He goes joint top of the Drivers Championship with Felipe Massa who had a disasterous drive today, finishing out of the points spinning 4 times throughout the race.
Classification
1. L. Hamilton (McLaren)
2. N. Heidfeld (BMW)
3. R. Barrichello (Honda)
4. K. Raikkonen (Ferrari)
5. H. Kovalainen (McClaren)
6. F. Alonso (Renault)
7. J. Trulli (Toyota)
8. K. Nakajima (Williams)
Driver’s Championship
1. L. Hamilton (McLaren) 48pts
2. F. Massa (Ferrari) 48pts
3. K. Raikkonen (Ferrari) 48pts
Filed under: F1 tips | Tagged: british, British Grand Prix, F1, Felipe Massa, Fernando Alonso, Ferrari, Formula 1, GP, Grand Prix, Hamilton, hamilton wins, Heikki Kovalainen, Jenson Button, Kimi Raikkonen, Lewis Hamilton, lewis hamilton wins, Mark Webber, McLaren, Nelson Piquet, Nelson Piquet jr, Nick Heidfeld, Nico Rosberg, rain, Red Bull, results, Robert Kubica, Silverstone
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