Lewis Hamilton said a fourth British Grand Prix triumph goes beyond his “wildest dreams” after he moved to within a solitary point of championship rival Nico Rosberg.
Advertisement
Hamilton led from start to finish in a race which began behind the safety vehicle following a deluge of rain at the Northamptonshire circuit.
Lewis Hamilton took a dominant victory in a hectic British Grand Prix to cut team-mate Nico Rosberg’s championship lead to four points.
Behind Rosberg came the Red Bull pair of Max Verstappen, who had an heroic battle with Rosberg, and Daniel Ricciardo, and they were followed by Kimi Raikkonen and Sergio Pérez.
Rosberg encountered a gearbox issue in the closing laps of the race.
Hamilton led the way for six laps before the real thing began, grumbling on lap four that “this safety auto is just really slow”.
But Rosberg caught up with Verstappen, and on lap 38 managed an overtake on the exit of Becketts to reclaim his second place, although it gets controversial from there.
He was then instructed to “avoid seventh gear”. Sixth-placed Toro Rosso now have 41 points.
Stewards adjudged that, in telling Rosberg how to mitigate a gearbox problem, Mercedes violated new regulations that stipulate: “The driver must drive the auto alone and unaided”.
There were pantomime boos for Rosberg when he appeared on the podium, his own fans having savaged Hamilton a week earlier after he won the Austrian Grand Prix despite Rosberg causing a collision on the first lap. The engineers and mechanics did a great job, so big thanks to all of them once again.
“I don’t know if you can be as happy as me, I’m really happy”, said Hamilton after his victory. The race stewards claimed that since the new regulations state that the driver must drive the vehicle alone and unaided, Mercedes’ aforementioned instruction was a breach of the Art. 27.1 of the Sporting Regulations.
“I had quite an oversteering auto in the beginning, and I knew I was quicker in the second and third sectors, so there was plenty of pace in that first sector if I needed it”. Rosberg was given a ten second drop for being given too much help over the radio, dropping him to third place and promoting Verstappen up to second.
Nico Rosberg insisted the communication was within the rules due to an exception allowing teams to communicate “a critical problem with the car”.
Advertisement
In a statement Monday a team statement said: “The Team accepts the Stewards’ interpretation of the regulation, their decision and the associated penalty”.
