Lewis Hamilton secures dominant victory at Silverstone

Lewis Hamilton crowd-surfs at Silverstone after his third consecutive win in the British Grand Prix. Picture: PA

Hamilton controlled the rain-hit race to become the first driver to win at Silverstone on three straight occasions, and move to within just one point of Nico Rosberg after the championship leader was hit with a ten-second retrospective timed penalty.

Rosberg, pictured below, crossed the line second behind Hamilton, but was deemed to have been in breach of the sport’s strict radio rules after he sought advice for a gearbox problem in the closing stages of the race. As such he dropped to third with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen promoted to  runner-up.

The verdict of the stewards – nearly four hours after the chequered flag fell in front of a record crowd – will no doubt come as a further boost to Hamilton, who ran down the podium steps after he was  presented with the winners’ trophy, jumped on to the barrier, before falling back into the arms of his  supporters. It marked another  iconic moment for Hamilton in a career where he is now just three wins short of his  half-century.

“Apart from standing there on the podium holding the trophy up and the bottle, there’s no real way of connecting with the people,” Hamilton said.

“I put the trophy down, and I could see the crowd and I just wanted to connect with them in some way. As I got there I was like, I want to go over the top.

“I was hoping that I would crowd-surf further in and then I would have to say ‘take me back’ but I got right to the edge and I stayed there for like a second and then they pushed me back on, but it is very very cool to see the support here. It is just phenomenal.”

Hamilton led from first to last in a race which began behind the safety car following a deluge of rain just 15 minutes before the start. When the safety car finally pitted at the end of lap five, Hamilton established a lead of nearly four seconds in just one lap over Rosberg.

From there, he never looked back, and despite running off the road at turn one, he ultimately cruised to his fourth victory in five races. The championship momentum is now firmly back in his favour.

“I would definitely say today that I was never under threat from either of the guys behind,” Hamilton added.

“I already had a gap of six  seconds so I never needed to do more or less. Every time they would post a time I would hear about it and I would turn it up a little bit or turn it down in terms of pace.”

Not for the first time this season, Hamilton’s championship rival Rosberg struggled in the changeable conditions. Indeed he spent much of the race in third after Verstappen pulled off a miraculous move around the outside of the  German at Chapel.

When the track dried out, the dominance of Rosberg’s Mercedes package enabled him to catch and re-pass the 18-year-old, but his second place was later stripped following a lengthy stewards’  investigation.

Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo crossed the line in fourth with Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen fifth. Jenson Button’s Silverstone hoodoo continued as he came home a lowly 12th while British rookie Jolyon Palmer failed to finish with a gearbox failure.