Lewis Hamilton stormed to another impressive victory at his home race, the British Grand Prix, on Sunday a win that saw a major boost to the Mercedes Drivers’ Championship ambitions after late drama for main rival Sebastian Vettel.
Though that was the main headline from Silverstone, there was plenty more stories to tell up and down the grid, so here’s our ‘Winners and Losers’ from Round 10 of the 2017 Formula 1 season.
Biggest Winner: Lewis Hamilton
This should be no surprise after the Briton could have never expected a better scenario to play out on home soil. The 32-year-old started from pole and led every lap in a faultless drive. Hamilton now ties the record for most British Grand Prix wins with five and, to top it all off, a puncture just two laps from the finish for Vettel see the two men just a single point apart heading into the second half of the season.
Winners:
Valtteri Bottas:
Bottas is on a mission of defying the odds to remain involved in the championship fight and has been bolstering his reputation along the way. The Finn started ninth after requiring a gearbox change but started with a series of overtakes, later produced the most significant passing Vettel at Stowe before taking advantage of Raikkonen’s bad luck to take a well-deserved second place.
Daniel Ricciardo:
Ricciardo delivered another remarkable comeback this time hauling his car from 19th on the grid to finish the race fifth at Silverstone. The Australian’s race seemed to feature an overtake on every single lap as he made his way through the field and certainly dispelled any theories you can’t make a move with the 2017 cars. If any driver deserved a post-race shoey it was him, instead, a ‘Driver of the Day’ accolade will do very nicely.
Nico Hulkenberg:
The Renault driver built his race on a solid qualifying session, maximising another team error by Force India not to tell Esteban Ocon to allow a much faster Sergio Perez through. If it wasn’t for a late engine issue, he could have kept Ricciardo at bay, as it was, sixth place and ‘best of the rest’ was still a good return.
Max Verstappen:
After a recent miserable run of form, with five retirements in the last seven races, the 19-year-old needed a good race and duly got it with fourth position at Silverstone. Though he was a little frustrated not to be able to match Ferrari and Mercedes, it will surely be satisfying for the Dutchman to put in a solid performance.
Biggest Loser: Sebastian Vettel
No one can compete with the German here. A bad start, followed by a struggle to pass Verstappen and, just when everything seemed to be under control even re-inheriting third after Raikkonen’s tyre failure, a puncture of his with one lap to go dropped Vettel back to seventh position. With his title rival Hamilton winning, the lead the Ferrari driver built in the first half of the season just vanished with Mercedes increasingly looking a dominant force.
Losers:
Kimi Raikkonen:
It seems that whenever the former world champion is having a good race, bad luck manages to eventually find him. Raikkonen drove a calm, steady race keeping his second position, even if the inability to challenge Hamilton concerned a few. It all seemed lost when he was the first of the Ferrari’s to have a tyre failure but he still got some recognition of his performance as the podium and a third place trophy would return to his grasp a lap later.
McLaren:
McLaren was hoping for a solid home Grand Prix; however, that wasn’t the case on Sunday. A fuel pump issue for Fernando Alonso led to another disappointing retirement, having started at the back of the grid due to engine penalties. While Stoffel Vandoorne, who made it to Q3 and had high hopes of the performance of the car, slipped back to 11th having started P8, meaning the Woking-based team finished pointless for the ninth time this season.
Daniil Kvyat:
The man they call the ‘torpedo’ unfortunately lived up to the nickname yet again at Silverstone as he and teammate Carlos Sainz collided on Lap 1. It marks the second straight race he was deemed responsible for a first lap crash and also the third Grand Prix in the last four that the Russian has been awarded a mid-race penalty, leaving him with nine points on his superlicence, three short of an automatic race ban.