SILVERSTONE: Lewis Hamilton jumped for joy on Sunday after steering his way through the capricious extremes of an English summer’s afternoon, with the aid of two well-timed pit-stops, to secure a third win on home soil in a dramatic British Grand Prix.

In front of a jubilant and wildly-enthusiastic crowd of more than 140,000, his well-judged win enabled him to increase his lead in this year’s drivers’ world championship as he led Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg home in treacherous and changeable conditions.

Recovering after losing the advantage of his 46th career pole position at the start, the series leader and defending two-time champion stormed back to lead and win with superbly-executed pit-stops after 19 and 43 laps of the 52 to win by 10.956 seconds to forge 17 points clear of Rosberg.

His first stop enabled him to move from third up to first in a tight race between the Mercedes and Williams teams and his second, to take ‘intermediate’ tyres while leading in the rain, confirmed he would add 2015 to his wins in 2008 and 2014.

Germany’s Sebastian Vettel finished third for Ferrari with Williams driver Felipe Massa bumped off the podium after leading for the first 20 laps following a blistering start.

“It was exciting for me, the start made it exciting and the English weather helped,” Hamilton said. “It’s an indication for us not to throw our toys out of the pram and say everything is wrong.”

Hamilton is the first back-to-back Silverstone winner since David Coulthard 15 years ago, thrilling the 140,000-strong home crowd at the central England circuit as he became only the third Briton, after Jim Clark and Nigel Mansell, to win three times at home.

“Great job guys,” Hamilton said over the team radio. “I am so happy with that. Thank you to all the fans for coming out.”

On a tricky afternoon of safety cars, sunshine and showers Hamilton timed his tyre strategy to perfection to chalk up his 38th career win and fifth of the season — and get his hands on a ‘proper’ gold trophy.

The Briton, who had complained about poor grip on his way to the grid, made a sluggish start from pole position as Massa roared through from the second row to lead into the first corner.

Rosberg, who was fourth at the end of the first lap, said his team mate had timed it exactly right in pitting for intermediates just as the rain began to come down hard. The German stayed out for another slippery lap before also pitting.

“I was pushing hard to try and catch Lewis under difficult conditions but he made the better call and that is where I lost it. Fair play to him,” said the German, who now has 177 points to Hamilton’s 194.

Mercedes, with their sixth one-two of the season, took another massive step towards retaining the constructors’ title and have 371 points to Ferrari’s 211.

Vettel of Ferrari took full advantage of the changing conditions with an equally well-timed stop to switch to intermediate tyres during the showers to finish third.

Brazilian Massa, who had led from the start until lap 20, ended up finishing fourth ahead of his Williams team-mate Finn Valtteri Bottas.

Red Bull’s Russian Daniil Kvyat finished sixth, while Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen was eighth and sandwiched between the Force Indias of Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez in seventh and ninth.

Two-time champion Spaniard Fernando Alonso scored his first point this year by finishing 10th for the beleaguered McLaren Honda team.

Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2015

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