Hamilton in tears as he masters Silverstone to take home victory

F1 Grand Prix, GP Great Britain, Silverstone Circuit

Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton has won the British Grand Prix in front of his home crowd. In mixed weather conditions Hamilton kept out of trouble and surmounted challenges by Verstappen and his compatriot Norris who completed the podium.

After everybody got safely off the line and the top 5 remained unchanged, Norris went slightly wide at Turn 4 and immediately lost his third place to Verstappen. Hamilton though was well in the slipstream of Russell and not immediately under threat from the Red Bull driver.

Behind Piastri, Sainz moved up into 6th as Hulkenberg dropped 3 places. Leclerc moved up from 11th to 8th. Alonso held on to 10th, followed by Tsunoda who gained two positions.

Those who started on soft tyres didn't fare too badly with Zhou staying in 14th and Ocon gained two positions. The other Alpine of Gasly was much less fortunate and had to retire from the race after the first lap, making a dismal weekend for the Frenchman even worse. This left Sergio Perez dead last after he started from the pitlane on hard tyres with a new Power Unit and gearbox.

The race became pretty stale after that with everybody trying to extend their stints, afraid to pit early and then be screwed if rain arrives. Hamilton remaining consistently at 1.5s off Russell while Verstappen gradually lost some ground, up to 3s by lap 13. Norris and Piastri seemed to have no problem keeping up with Verstappen's pace but neither tried to overtake and left a 1s gap, always just getting or missing DRS before really getting closer in lap 14.

Zhou was the first to pit, exchanging his softs from the start to a brand new set of medium tyres on lap 13. He returned to the track in last position, 25s down on his own team mate who had been passed by Perez.

In the top 10, Leclerc put some pressure on Stroll and eventually managed to pass the Aston Martin driver for 7th place in a very clean and seemingly easy move through Stowe.

As some light drizzle continued, Norris really closed in on Verstappen and got a DRS overtake done ahead of Stowe corner. The Enligshman immediately recorded the fastest lap, 6 tenths faster than when both Mercedes managed.

As the crowd brought out the umbrellas, Norris really was considerably faster than Verstappen, pulling away 9 tenths while the Red Bull driver now had to start looking in his mirrors as Piastri got DRS. In fact, that only lasted for half a lap as the Australian breezed past Verstappen to take 4th place on lap 17.

At the very front, Hamilton clearly felt more comfortably in the slippery wet conditions and soon found himself in an attacking position to take the lead away from his team mate. On lap 18, Lewis took the lead. In turn 1 of the following lap, both Mercedes went straight in Turn 1, much to the pleasure of Norris who used the incident to get past Russell.

Rain further intensified and Norris was getting stronger by the minute, triggering race control to disable DRS. At the start of lap 20 Norris took the lead with Piastri overtaking Russell. The McLaren clearly managed to keep its tyres working longer than the others with Hamilton soon losing second place to the Australian McLaren driver.

Leclerc, Perez, Ocon and Zhou meanwhile pitted to take on intermediates. Hamilton on the other hand insisted it was too early for wet tyres as he tried to hold on to Piastri. Perez soon found out it was too dry and disappointingly reported this back to his team and he soon had to back out of racing as he was getting lapped and needed to let the close pack of McLaren and Mercedes drivers past. The same was true for Leclerc as the intermediate runners were lapping 10 seconds a lap slower while desperately waiting for more rain.

Verstappen was meanwhile still lapping half a second a lap slower than the Mercedes duo while Sainz followed at little more than a second.

As the rain intensified again on lap 26, Piastri suddenly found himself in the slipstream of Norris. Verstappen and Sainz simultaneously decided to pit, followed by Hulkenberg, Stroll and Ricciardo that same lap.

Though Piastri was close he didn't immediately try to make a pass as it was obvious he too was struggling at times to keep his car on track. At the end of that lap, Norris, Hamilton and Russell pitted while Piastri continued, taking the lead of the race. Everybody else also pitted that lap, leaving Piastri to be the last one on slicks.

After the stops it was obvious the early stoppers were right. In fact, by the time Piastri got round to make his stop, Norris was only 5s behind him any more. Piastri rejoined only in 6th position while Verstappen managed to get past Russell thanks to stopped a lap earlier. Once up to speed he soon lapped a full second quicker than Sainz in 5th but didn't really manage to get a pass done quickly.

Meawhile things got even worse for Perez, Leclerc and Ocon as the rain made them realise their inters had worn too much while trying to make it through those laps where it was too dry. Needless to say, they all had to stop for new intermediates to make it through this wetter phase of the race that was expected to last about 10 laps.

On lap 34 Russell returned to the pits, not for a change of tyres but to retire the car with technical trouble on the water system. Then end of a great weekend for the Englishman.

By lap 37 the sun returned and rain stopped. Suddenly Verstappen was faster then Norris and Hamilton ahead. As Norris went on, Hamilton, Verstappen and Piastri pitted to change slicks. Hamilton went for softs, Verstappen switched to hard tyres and Piastri took on medium compound Pirellis.

Norris, Sainz and 6th placed Hulkenberg pitted one lap later, leading Hamilton to lead the race, 2.5s ahead of Norris. Piastri meanwhile set the fastest lap on the medium tyres, 4 tenths faster than what Hamilton did and one tenth faster than Verstappen on the hards.

With 10 laps to go, Hamilton had 2.5s on Norris, 5.3s on Verstappen and 16.1s on Piastri. Sainz switched to slicks a lap too late and suddenly found himself 10s behind Piastri. Hulkenberg in 6th place was another 22 seconds further down, followed by Stroll, Alonso, Tsunoda and Albon who completed the top 10.

As the gap between Hamilton and Norris remained somewhat constant, Verstappen was clearly faster and had DRS on Norris as they started lap 48 of 52. At the straight ahead of Stowe Corner of that lap, Verstappen easily breezed past Norris to take second place and record the fastest lap at the same time, shaving 6 tenths off of Hamilton's advantage right away. That gap had increased slightly but as now at 3.2 seconds with 4 laps left.

Two laps from the end the advantage was still 3 seconds, bringing renewed hope to the English fans and surely Hamilton himself. As the started the last lap, the gap was 2.780 seconds, enabling Hamilton to take a brilliant home victory at his beloved Silverstone as Mercedes now seem to be very much back in the fight!

As Piastri continued to set fastest laps, Sainz opted to spoil his fun the bit and pitted the penultimate lap to record fastest lap of the race with a fresh set of soft tyres.