Lewis Hamilton victorious in a dramatic British Grand Prix

The 2015 British Grand Prix was entertaining in all fashion with wheel to wheel racing, late rain and shuffle of positions which was won by home boy Lewis Hamilton for the second year in succession.

The start was a shocker as both Mercedes cars failed to deliver a perfect launch and were easily overtaken by the Williams of Massa and Bottas right off the line. Massa led into the first corner with Bottas but pole man Hamilton fought back to get second position from Bottas with some amazing wheel to wheel racing before the DRS was enabled and also arrived to attack on the leader Massa.

Rosberg on the other Mercedes also started to attack on Bottas going wheel to wheel before the Safety Car was brought in due to the collisions of McLarens and Lotuses on the opening lap. Button retired but Alonso went into pits for a wing change and rejoined the track.

As the race restarted couple of laps later Hamilton attacked right away on Massa onto C1 from the outside but locked up too hard and had to cut the chicane going on the gravel and in the process lost a place to Valteri Bottas. From there the Williams dominated the race even recieving a team order "No Racing with your team mate".

Hamilton was the first if front runners to pit on lap 19 to get some advantage and it worked out perfectly for the Mercedes driver as he was ahead of Massa and Rosberg when they rejoined from the pits a lap later. Bottas who led the race briefly as Massa pitted joined right between Massa and Rosberg and Hamilton grabbed the lead of his home grand prix. Rosberg tried to attack Bottas but the Williams driver somehow managed to hang on to his position.

Hamilton was told he had to go for a 1 stop strategy like the Williams and was advised to use the tires wisely till the end but also with the threat of rain and the Williams team relaxed their team order and told their drivers to fight for positions once they lost the lead.

Hamilton was 9secs ahead of the Williams duo as the rain threat gloomed and once few drops of rain fell the race became interesting again. Alonso and Raikkonen were the early runners to go in for intermediates before the rain came in full and struggled with the tires.

As the track temperature dropped Rosberg improved his pace beating both Williams but Hamilton started to struggle losing grip and Rosberg caught up almost behind him. 

Hamilton reacted quickly and opted to enter the pits at the right moment for intermediate tires and luckily the rain started to grow heavy giving the British driver the perfect timing and better traction. Both Williams car came in at the same time and Bottas lost time behind his team mate. Rosberg on the slicks had to come in only a lap later which allowed Hamilton to stretch an advantage. 

Vettel like Rosberg got faster when the track dropped temperature got ahead of both Williams cars to get into 3rd position behind the Mercedes of Hamilton and Rosberg after changing to intermediates. The Williams drivers suffered and lost places due to their delayed pitstops. The race got interesting as positions shuffled due to the rain and pit stops.

Hamilton was very strong in his intermediates and took the chequered flag 10secs ahead of his team mate Rosberg and Vettel crossed third 25secs later. Massa and Bottas of Williams finished a disappointing 4th and 5th after leading the race for 20 laps.

Danil Kyvat on the RedBull finished 6th ahead of the Force India of Hulkenberg with Raikkonen on the Ferrari coming 8th ahead of Perez in the Force India.

Fernando Alonso completed the top 10 and made his first points finish of 2015 on the new McLaren Honda.


 Formula 1 British Grand Prix 2015 - Race Results