Lewis Hamilton took a narrow victory in the FORMULA 1 PIRELLI BRITISH GRAND PRIX 2020, having narrowly limped home after a punctured tyre on the final lap of the race. In was a race with a dramatic closing stage.
Nico Hulkenberg was set to make a temporary return return to Formula One after having been booted from Renault last season. He had already completed practice and qualifying as a substitute for Sergio Perez, who sat out the weekend after testing positive for COVID-19. But technical issues kept Hulkenberg’s Racing Point trapped into the garage.
At the start of the race, Max Verstappen and Valtteri Bottas got away well from the grid. Lewis Hamilton was just able to maintain his lead into the first corner. Charles Leclerc was able to get by Verstappen briefly when the Red Bull driver had to get off the throttle to avoid hitting Bottas. Verstappen remained wheel to wheel with Leclerc and was able to regain the position on the exit for turn four.
Further back, Kevin Magnussen had a strong opening lap, managing to overtake multiple cars. His race ended after his collided with Alex Albon in the final corner. The safety car was deployed to clear the stricken Haas, while Albon continued the race.
When the race resumed five laps later, Albon pitted to get some hard tyres due to some vibrations. He was later given a five second time penalty by the stewards for the collision, which he served during a pit stop later in the race.
Lance Stroll had a good restart, getting past Esteban Ocon. Ocon put up a good fight, but couldn’t retake the position. Stroll started a charge on Lando Norris. The Canadian would have had the advantage of running the medium tyres over Norris’ softs, but the safety car was deployed.
It was deployed so that the marshals could remove the wreckage of Daniil Kvyat’s car on lap 13. He lost the rear of the car when he got onto the kerbs on the inside of the fast turn 10. Kvyat was uninjured by the heavy impact.
The safety car was very close to the pit window, causing most of the drivers to dive into the pits for the hard compound tyres. The only driver who didn’t pit under the safety car was Romain Grosjean, opting to stay on his medium tyres to inherit P5.
Norris was eager to make some positions when the race resumed on lap 19. He zipped around the outside of Daniel Ricciardo at Luffield to take P7. He challenged his teammate around the outside of the quick Copse corner on the same lap, but he ran wide off the circuit and was forced to give up that battle. He maintained his P7.
Grosjean was showing decent pace in his artificial P5, able to maintain pace with Leclerc ahead and Carlos Sainz behind. Sainz wanted to get by the Frenchman, launching many overtake attempts that were blocked by Grosjean. He was given a warning for his defensive moves again Sainz. He finally got by on lap 22 and Grosjean began falling back.
Out in front, Lewis Hamilton was maintaining a gap of more than a second to his teammate, while Bottas was a comfortable 8 seconds ahead of Verstappen’s Red Bull. The Mercedes duo were swapping fastest laps of the race in the middle stages of the race.
On lap 37, Ricciardo was finally able to make an overtaking move on Grosjean into turn 6. Haas finally called Grosjean into the pits for new tyres. Grosjean’s defence of the position attracted the attention of the stewards for moving in the braking zone. Having already been warned by the stewards earlier in the race for a similar infraction, the stewards decided that they will make a judgment after the race.
In the final 10 laps of the race, the Mercedes drivers appeared to be suffering from tyre graining and degradation at the front. Bottas was complaining about vibrations. This was potential good news for Verstappen, who was running a lonely race all by himself in P3.
In the closing laps, Bottas began to dramatically slow. His complained about heavy vibrations and visibility issues (caused by the vibrations). Verstappen began to gain on Bottas. Bottas finally lost the position when he blew his front-left tyre.
After getting by Bottas, Red Bull called Verstappen in for a free pit stop to try and get the fastest lap. It was a move that did give him an extra point, but cost him a race victory.
On the final lap of the race, Hamilton blew his front-left tyre just like his teammate. He was able to limp home on three tyres, taking a victory by just five seconds.
Carlos Sainz also shredded his front-left tyre on the final lap, revealing a potential weakness in the Pirelli tyres at this circuit when trying to take the one stop strategy.
Albon was able to get himself comfortably into a points scoring position, despite his early collision with Magnussen and the associated penalty.
It was Hamilton on top of the podium with Verstappen and Leclerc alongside him. Hamilton greatly extends his lead at the top of the World Drivers’ Championship table because Bottas finished the race outside of the points.
Formula One won’t be leaving the UK just yet. They will be sticking around the legendary Silverstone circuit for another weekend. A second British Grand Prix to celebrate the 70th anniversary of F1 racing will be held next weekend.
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Above results table does not include any post-race penalties
