Lewis Hamilton equals Clark and Prost record with five British GP wins

Lewis Hamilton for the fourth time in a row triumphed at British Grand Prix and also scored the fourth victory in 2017 Formula 1 World Championship to reduce a gap to Sebastian Vettel in the standings to a single point! At the same time, the Mercedes team scored a fifth consecutive victory at Silverstone while Hamilton for the 57th time in his F1 career reached the podium top spot. Finally, Hamilton equaled the records of Jim Clark and Alain Prost with five wins at British Grand Prix.

The race start was postponed after Jolyon Palmer’s car stopped at Stowe due to issue with the brake-by-wire system. The Renault driver, who was set to start from P11, was forced to retire even before the start. When the race finally started, Lewis Hamilton left his rivals behind while Max Verstappen took the P3 from Sebastian Vettel.

2017 British Grand Prix at Silverstone

Unfortunately, Carlos Sainz Jr retired on lap after a collision with his Toro Rosso teammate Daniil Kvyat. The Russian driver has been given a drive-through penalty for rejoining the track unsafely. After 10 laps, the most interesting was the battle between Verstappen and Vettel. The Red Bull and Ferrari driver fought intensely what went in favor of Valtteri Bottas who sneaked just behind them, determinate to play important role in the final stage of the race.

Vettel pitted earlier than Verstappen and profited from that move as he took the position from the Dutch youngster. At the same time, Mercedes did a great job. Their cars were faster and their strategy was better than Ferrari’s, so Hamilton and Bottas were on P1 and P2 respectively on lap 27 but the Finn still had to pit.

Vettel Verstappen British Grand Prix 2017

Vettel battled with Verstappen in the first half of the race

Bottas finally pitted on lap 31 and returned behind two Ferraris. The Mercedes driver was much faster than Kimi Raikkonen and Vettel, and with 15 laps to go, he still had a good chance of reaching the podium while his teammate led the race with an advantage of almost 12s. On lap 44, Bottas easily overtook Vettel for P3 but it looked like that Raikkonen on P2 was too far.

Very late in the race, Ferrari suffered a huge blow. With two laps to go, Kimi suffered a front left puncture and had to go for tires change while in the following lap Vettel was hit by the same problem and also went in. Hamilton won the race ahead of Bottas while Raikkonen was able to take the 3rd place.

Sebastian Vettel British Grand Prix 2017 Ferrari

Vettel’s lead in the standings is reduced to just one point

Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo, who started from P19, finished 4th and 5th respectively, Nico Hulkenberg was 6th while Vettel had to settle for the 7th position. Esteban Ocon, Sergio Perez, and Felipe Massa picked the remaining points.