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Hamilton Wins Home Grand Prix In Britain

Lewis Hamilton celebrates his fifth win of the season Sunday at the British Grand Prix . It is his first victory at this track since 2008, and puts him four points behind teammate and series leader Nico Rosberg.  [Photo courtesy of ESPN F1.]

 
SILVERSTONE, England- Taking advantage of series leader Nico Rosberg’s gearbox failure on lap 29, Lewis Hamilton managed to easily hold off Valterri Bottas by over 30 seconds to win the British Grand Prix Sunday and pull within four points of Rosberg in the Formula One World Championship after nine rounds.

“It is very mixed at the moment but the support we have here and cheering us on throughout the race.” Said Hamilton. “We have the greatest fans in the world. Nico (Rosberg) got a great gap at the beginning and I was trying to look after the tires. But after that, we got the harder tire, and we were beginning to catch him and I could not believe we had that kind of pace. I did not want to see a teammate fall behind, we wanted to get a 1-2.”

The start was clean, even after Sergio Perez and Jean-Eric Vergne touched wheels after the first couple of corners. However, on the same lap, Kimi Raikkonen went wide on the last turn before Hanger Straight running over a dip outside of the course, which spun his Ferrari across the track, into the wall and across the road, collecting an unfortunate Felipe Massa, which put both cars out of the race, bringing out the safety car. By lap two, the race was red flagged, which lasted for over an hour while track marshals could repair the barrier that Raikkonen hit.

Hamilton, who began the race in sixth, quickly moved up after the restart and by lap four already found himself in second place. Fernando Alonso had to move his Ferrari even further up the grid, after beginning the race in 16th, and by this point, had moved up to eighth. But Alonso’s move up the order was delayed when the Spaniard was forced to come into the pits to serve a stop/go penalty after putting all four of his wheels over the curb.

After both Mercedes drivers exchanged pit stops, Rosberg held the lead. But suddenly on lap 29, Rosberg encountered a gearbox issue which had began to affect him nine laps earlier, forcing Hamilton to close up on him. The problem put the German out of the race and gave Hamilton a huge lead, one that he would never give up. Bottas had an easy cruise to second, while Daniel Riccardo gave Infiniti/Red Bull another podium by just holding off Jenson Button and his McLaren for third.

Sebastian Vettel had a huge fight with Alonso and just kept his composure to finish just in fifth position, while Kevin Magnussen finished in seventh. Nico Hulkenberg took eightth in his Force India entry, while Toro Rosso’s Dani Kvyat and Vergne rounded up the top ten respectively.

Hamilton afterwards showed his appreciation with his fans that they are still important to him.

“I think this weekend really shows that you never give up and yesterday, it was not the case of giving up, but coming here today, I had my family and the support of the fans and I could not done anything without them.” He concluded.

 

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