Face of Nation : Lewis Hamilton claimed a historic victory on his hometown track as he edged out his Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas.
The win for Hamilton makes it six at the British Grand Prix, the most by any individual driver as he moves ahead of Alain Prost and Jim Clark.
It also extends his lead atop the 2019 drivers standings with the gap now out to 39 points clear from Bottas.
Ferrari young gun Charles Leclerc rounded out the podium after moving up into third following a spectacular crash between fierce rivals Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel.
On lap 39 as the battle for third place heated up, Verstappen made his way past the Ferrari of Vettel, but seconds later it all went horribly wrong.
The gap between the duo was minimal and after a late shift from Vettel he attempted to go down the inside, but Verstappen held his ground and felt the full force of the Ferrari slam into him as both cars went sent into the gravel.Both were able to get back out onto the track with Verstappen jumping back into fifth place, but Vettel fell all the way down to 17th before being handed a 10-second time penalty for the collision.
“He passed me into Stowe, he ran a bit wide which gave me the chance to run back. Then it looked for a second he was going to the right and I went to the left, but it didn’t open and it was already too late and I crashed.”
Verstappen said Vettel apologised to him immediately after the race, with the incident costing the Dutchman a podium finish.
“I defended into 17 and got rear-ended,” said the Dutchman. “The speed difference was less because he could see I was going to close the door, so a bit different to Baku (when he collided with former team-mate Daniel Ricciardo in Baku 2018).
“Here you can expect me to close the door when I’m ahead. “We already spoke to each other and he apologised.”
A clean start to the race saw the Mercedes duo quickly put a gap between themselves and the field and fans couldn’t get enough of the action unfolding behind the Silver Arrows.
Before Vettel slammed into Verstappen, the fiery Red Bull driver was locked into a tense arm-wrestle against fellow Ferrari young gun Leclerc. The two youngsters who are the future of the sport battled back and forth over several laps as they pushed their cars to the limit.
