Hamilton enjoys ‘F1 at its best’ at British GP, Wolff rues missed win chance

Lewis Hamilton declared the British Grand Prix as “Formula 1 at its best” after an epic battle in the closing laps.

Having spent much of the race chasing the leading Ferraris, the seven-time world champion found himself wheel-to-wheel with Sergio Perez and Charles Leclerc on several occasions in a frenetic duel for the podium after a Safety Car period.

Ultimately, Ferrari’s decision to leave Leclerc out on used Hard tyres backfired and Hamilton was able to pass for third, securing a record 13th top three finish at Silverstone.

And post-race, Lewis gave the action a big thumbs up.

“I definitely did,” he said on if he enjoyed the battle.

“That was very reminiscent of the karting days and I feel like that’s Formula 1 at its best – the fact we were able to follow and dice like that lap by lap is a testament to the direction I think we are now in.

“I was just grateful I could be in the battle because I’ve not been in that fight for a while.

“I gave it everything today,” Hamilton added. “I was trying to chase down the Ferraris but congratulations to Carlos [Sainz]. They were just too quick today for us.

“At the end, I was in amongst that battle with Checo (Perez). Those guys were just too quick on the straights for me today, but this is a huge bonus for us to be on the podium.”

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Every positive move Hamilton made was greeted by huge cheers around Silverstone, and the 37-year-old was very aware of the “incredible support” he had.

“You can’t imagine it,” he explained. “It’s so loud in the car with our earplugs in but I could feel it. I could feel it all weekend from Thursday, I could feel the incredible support here in the UK.

“I’m just incredibly grateful to everyone for showing up in full form and full energy. This is the biggest crowd we’ve had here, so I really hope everyone had a great day.”

Also buoyed by Mercedes’ pace was team boss Toto Wolff, who believed Hamilton could have had a ninth British GP win had it not been for the Safety Car.

“Very pleased, the car had some performance today and we were in there to win the race and that’s very encouraging,” said the Austrian.

“I think we probably lost a little bit of momentum after the restart, but we had almost no bouncing which was encouraging, and the pace was good on the hards and on the medium tyre, just on the softs we were not able to really get the grip that we would have wished at the end.

“I think without the Safety Car he would have probably won the race,” Wolff declared.

“At the end, it was just Perez was there and Sainz just went. It’s okay – the most encouraging [thing], like I said before, is that we had a car that was able to race.”