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The race began with both the Ferraris having a good start and keeping their positions in place. Bottas had a decent start from third but Lewis was mugged by both the Red Bulls. Luckily for Lewis both the Red Bulls collided with each other, sending Ricciardo out of the race at the first lap and Max Verstappen got 10 secs penalty for colliding with his team mate. This brought the safety car and after the safety car restart, Hamilton had a go at Verstappen but backed off considering it very risky. Behind Hamilton, Alonso was trying to move ahead of Sainz but he pushed Alonso off the track. Later Alonso showed Sainz who is the boss, and over took him on turn 2. Before the first pit stop Vettel was complaining about his steering wheel being in wrong alignment, and the team asked him not to hit the kerbs in the corners. This put his race at risk but he managed it well. Raikkonen in second place was faster than Vettel asked the team to give him a better strategy at the first pit stop but the team declined. Meanwhile Lewis was having trouble with his radio where he cannot communicate with his team. After the first pit stop every one went to softs and the Mercedes were quicker in it. With Vettel managing his steering issue, the Ferrari was going in a slower pace allowing both the Mercedes to catch Kimi. When Lewis got his radio working, he asked the team to let him attack Kimi as he was having better pace than Bottas. The team ordered Bottas to let Lewis go and he obliged as Lewis promised he will give the position back to Bottas if he cannot overtake Kimi. Lewis closed in on Kimi, but could not make a pass. Meanwhile Verstappen who had a longer stint in the super soft, came out with much fresher tyres and was able to close in on Bottas. Mercedes asked Bottas to pick up the pace and maintain the gap with Lewis so that they can swap the position back but Bottas fell10 seconds behind Lewis, and he was just a second ahead of Verstappen. Vettel won the race followed by his Ferrari team mate Kimi giving themselves a 1-2 since Monaco GP. On the last couple of laps Lewis did not attack Kimi, instead he slowed down to swap his position as promised. Everyone thought the swap will danger Lewis losing his position to Verstappen, but Hamilton slowed down on the last lap, and let Bottas pass on the last corner, just managing to stay ahead of Verstappen’s Red Bull. This was the only moment in the race that was worth appreciating for displaying a great sportsmanship. Bottas thanked Lewis, so did everyone in the Mercedes team. Meanwhile Mclaren’s Alonso finished 6th with a fastest lap giving himself a good birthday present.

The 2017 British GP showed us bad fortunes can change within a week. Lewis Hamilton was having a bad time in the past 2 races with an unnecessary pit stop which robbed him a victory and a penalty for gearbox failure putting him 20pts behind Vettel in the driver’s championship standing. But in his home grand prix he was able to put an excellent drive where he took a record breaking pole, led every lap in the race, set the fastest lap and cut Vettel’s championship lead to 1pt from 20pts. The race started with two formation lap due to an early retirement for the home boy Jolyon Palmer where his Renault stopped in the warm up lap. When the lights went off, Hamilton had a good start and maintained his lead. The race spiced up when Verstappen over took Vettel in the first lap and jumped to 3rd from 4th and Kimi maintained his second spot. In the back of the pack Bottas starting from 9th had a decent start where he jumped to 7th. The first lap had its drama when Kvyat collided with his team mate Sainz which brought the safety car to the track. Kvyat nicknamed the torpedo was punished later with a drive through penalty.  The race continued after the safety car where the battle between Vettel’s Ferrari and Verstappen’s Red Bull gave us a great excitement when Vettel overtook Verstappen and then Verstappen retook his position from Vettel again with some naughty and gritty drive. The Ferrari’s think tank brought Vettel in for an early pit stop at Lap 18 to undercut the Red Bull and succeeded. Vettel took fourth and Max dropped to fifth after his pitstop, meanwhile Valtteri Bottas who was on a longer stint in his soft tyres jumped to third position. Kimi and Hamilton made their pit stop few laps later, and Hamilton came out just ahead of Valtteri Bottas who is yet to pit. Hamilton was asked to let Bottas take the lead if he cannot go faster than his team mate, but Lewis responded immediately and extended the gap between him and Bottas. Bottas pitted for the super soft tyres on Lap 32, and came out 5 seconds behind Vettel. He was able to put some quick laps and cut the gap to less than a second, giving him the advantage of DRS and faster tyres. On lap 42 Bottas made an attempt to pass but Vettel just managed to hold the Mercedes off. In the process Vettel locked his brakes, badly flat spotting his front left tyre and making it all the more vulnerable to Silverstone’s high loads. On the next lap Bottas was able to close in on Vettel and made a great pass to jump to the third position. The final 10 laps saw drivers nursing their tyres where Hamilton complained about the blisters in his tyres. Nothing was really serious until with 4 laps to go Kimi tyres went off due to delamination of rubber where the the air pressure in the tubes were fine but the rubber in the tyre completely worn off. Red Bull took no chance and immediately pitted Verstappen. Vettel jumped to third as Kimi came fourth after his pit stop but it was short lived when Vettel’s tyre was also blown and he finished 7th. Vettel faced similar type of tyre issues with Pirelli and Ferrari in the past too, it started in 2015 Belgian GP, then in 2016 Austrian GP, and now in 2017 British GP. This gave Bottas second position and Hamilton was able to cut Vettel’s championship lead from 20 pts to just 1pt. Lucky day for Mercedes and an unlucky day for Ferrari, especially for Kimi who did everything fine as a driver.

The Qualifying – Q1 of British GP started with a light drizzle and everyone started their laps with intermediate tyres. Daniel Riccardio started the session well but his Redbull’s turbo failed and Q1 was stopped to clear the car. The session restarted few minutes later where everyone posted their times with intermediate tyres. Red Bull’s Verstappen topped the chart, Hamilton and Bottas came second and third, with Ferrari’s Vettel on fourth and Kimi at fifth. But the real star of Q1 was Alonso on the slow Honda engined McLaren, who facing a 30 spot grid penalty for an engine change gambled with slick tyres at the final moments of the session. Alonso just nibbled to start his lap fractions before the session ended and did emerge in P1 to shock everyone. Stroll, Magnussen, Wehrlein, Ericsson and Ricciardo were knocked out of Q1. On Q2 everyone headed out in super soft tryes but Valteri bottas went with soft tyres for a different race strategy due to his 5 spot grid penalty for a gear box change. Hamilton went quickest by a full second, Bottas was within 0.8s of Hamilton’s time on the softs. Vettel came third ahead of Raikkonen and Verstappen on fifth. Palmer, Kvyat, Alonso, Sainz and Massa are all out in Q2. Q3 started with Hamilton making a record breaking lap time of 1’27.231s but Roman Grosjean complained Lewis impeded his fying lap costing him 0.3 secs while Lewis was on the preparation lap. On the final run of Q3, Bottas who was 2nd ran wide to lose time and was beaten by Vettel on the Ferrari while Raikkonen overcame both of them to go second on the grid behind Lewis. The home hero Lewis Hamilton clocked his final lap and broke the Silverstone record barrier further by posting a sensational 1’26.600, more than half a second quicker than Kimi’s time to his 5th pole in his home track but an investigation was pending. Finally the stewards ruled statement no further action on Hamilton and said: “While GRO potentially may have been affected by presence of HAM, he was not impeded.” Therefore Hamilton kept his pole in his home grand prix.

As usual the race began with the red lights off and boom! Bottas had the start of his life. So quick to react, his fellow drivers thought he jumped the start before the red lights went off. The Finn’s reaction time was recorded at just 0.21s. Vettel complained that Bottas had a jump start causing the race officials to investigate the issue and found nothing but a great start. The first lap had its drama with Toro Rosso’s Kvyat causing a domino effect collision hitting Alonso’s McLaren and Alonso hit Max Verstappen’s Red Bull. The dutch man Verstappen was the unluckiest person having 4 DNFs in the past 5 starts. Bottas took an early lead, with Vettel second, and Ricciardo taking third after he over took Kimi Raikonnen with his usual brilliant move. Lewis Hamilton had a decent start where he jumped to 6th from 8th but got  sandwiched between Force India’s Perez and Ocon with Grosjean at 5th and Kimi at 4th. Hamilton passed Perez and Grosjean but Kimi’s Ferrari was untouchable so Mercedes brought Hamilton in for an early pit stop. Starting 8th on the grid Hamilton started the race with the super soft tyres for a longer stint but has to cut short his first stint for an undercut over Kimi. It worked as Lewis was able to put quick laps with his ultra softs and reached 4th position. Red Bull reacted quickly and brought in Ricciardo for his super soft tyres. He came out 4 seconds ahead of Lewis after his pit stop. Lewis was not able to attack as his ultra soft tyres started to blister quickly and had to play safe . Thereafter the race was static, nothing much happening. Ferrari kept Kimi on the track for a longer first stint so that he can block Bottas to help Vettel. But after the first pit stop Bottas was quick with his fresh super softs and overtook Kimi easily. The race became hot at the last two laps when Hamilton closed in on Ricciardo and Vettel closed in on Bottas. On the penultimate lap Hamilton got a chance to over take Ricciardo on turn 2, the same place where Rosberg pushed Hamilton off the track and lost his front wing last year. But Ricciardo braked late and kept his position while Hamilton had to back off to settle for 4th as his tyres had worn out. The race ended with Bottas finishing just 0.6s ahead of Vettel with Ricciardo taking the final podium ahead of Hamilton. Kimi finished 5th, Haas’ Grosjean 6th, Force India’s Perez and Ocon finished 7th & 8th, and William’s Massa & Stroll finished 9th & 10th respectively.

Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) did a final do or die lap to secure pole from from his team mate Valteri Bottas. Hamilton was troubled by issues in Free Practice but came back in stunning style to claim pole for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix