Silverstone: McLaren's Lewis Hamilton blew away his rivals to win his home British Grand Prix on Sunday and storm back to the top of the Formula One standings.
Hamilton, now locked in a three-way tie at the top with Ferrari's Felipe Massa and world champion Kimi Raikkonen, mastered the rain to silence his critics with one of the all-time great performances in the wet.
The 90,000 capacity crowd, without a home winner since David Coulthard won for McLaren in 2000, stood and roared as the 23-year-old took the chequered flag a staggering 68.5 seconds ahead of BMW-Sauber's Nick Heidfeld.
Adding to the sense of astonishment, Brazilian Rubens Barrichello clambered on to the podium for the first time since 2005 - when he was at Ferrari - to almost double Honda's season points tally.
Hamilton, who had started a disappointing fourth on the grid, lapped everyone but Heidfeld and Barrichello to seal his third victory of the season and seventh in 26 starts.
The 10 points put him level on 48 with Massa, who was 13th and last after spinning five times on a calamitous afternoon for the Brazilian, and world champion Raikkonen but ahead of both on race finishes.
Raikkonen, last year's winner at Silverstone, finished fourth after Ferrari took a gamble on the fickle British weather and lost.
Poland's Robert Kubica, who would have retaken the championship lead had he held on to third place, skidded into the gravel with 20 laps to go and slipped to fourth overall with 46 points at the halfway point of the season.
"It's definitely by far the best victory I've ever had, it was one of the toughest races I've ever done," said Hamilton.
"When I was out there, I was thinking this would definitely go down as the best race I've ever won."
Perfect riposte
Ferrari continued to lead the constructors' standings with 96 points to BMW Sauber's 82 while third-placed McLaren closed the gap on 72.
"It was a weekend definitely to forget," said Massa.
Hamilton's victory was the perfect riposte to those who had suspected he was feeling the pressure of fame and fortune after two error-laden races in Canada and France.
Ridiculed as a 'crash dummy' after ploughing into Raikkonen's stationary car in the Montreal pit lane, he got it right from start to finish on Sunday as others slithered and slipped around him.
"You are the master in the wet," his brother had told him before the race and afterwards, with the sun breaking out over Silverstone, it was as if another cloud had lifted.
"It's been a tough few weeks but it's been a great weekend and I'm a great believer in things happening for a reason," said Hamilton.
"Martin Luther King said something about how it is not the times of triumph that make up who we are but the times when we are at our lowest."
Hamilton made a flying start and was up to second place through the first corner after a wheel-banging challenge with team mate Heikki Kovalainen.
Kovalainen, who started on pole for the first time in his Formula One career, held on for five laps before the Briton took the lead.
The Finn then spun to allow compatriot Raikkonen through into second place and the battle was on between McLaren and Ferrari, with the champion taking a second a lap out of Hamilton's time.
The two pitted together at the end of lap 21, a stop that proved decisive for the Briton and devastating for Raikkonen.
While Hamilton refuelled and switched to a fresh set of intermediates, Ferrari kept Raikkonen on his existing tyres in the expectation that the rain would ease off. When it did not, their strategy fell apart.
The two had been nose-to-tail leaving the pits but the McLaren driver vanished into the spray, lapping nearly five seconds quicker than Raikkonen to build up a lead of 29 seconds by lap 27.
Kovalainen finished fifth, ahead of Renault's double world champion Fernando Alonso with Italian Jarno Trulli seventh for Toyota and Japan's Kazuki Nakajima taking the final point for Williams.
Red Bull's Coulthard retired from his last home appearance after skidding off without completing a lap.
Comments
0 comment