Hamilton snatches British GP victory from Leclerc despite penalty.

Hamilton British GP victory – Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton snatched a home British GP victory off Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc with two laps to spare despite being hit with a 10 second penalty for his opening lap collision with title-rival Max Verstappen sending the Red Bull driver out of the race.

Hamilton was penalised for the controversial clash at Copse corner, just after, which saw Leclerc take the lead before the race was red flagged.

Leclerc lead the majority of the restarted Grand Prix, including whilst managing a nagging engine issue, but was unable to withstand Hamilton’s late push to the front following his long pit-stop, where the Briton served his penalty.

When the 52 lap British GP began, unlike in yesterday’s F1 Sprint Qualifying, Hamilton made the better run off the line and was alongside pole-sitter Verstappen as they raced down to Abbey, with the Dutchman hanging on around the outside – almost going into the run-off area – to lead at Village.

The fight continued, as the duo ran side-by-side that they appeared to touch, down the Wellington Straight, at the end of which Hamilton go ahead on the outside line, with Verstappen running on the inside kerbs and remained in-front, even though it took the Red Bull driver wide on the exit.

Verstappen’s tighter entry through Luffield meant Hamilton was able to get into the slipstream on the old pit-straight, diving to the inside and very close to the barriers after Verstappen had moved to cover the inside line for Copse corner.

There, with Hamilton alongside, the title-rivals collided as they ran through the fast right-hander, with Hamilton’s front-left tyre clipping Verstappen’s right-rear and knocking it off the RB16B, which was spun around at high-speed and crashed into the barriers in the outside.

Verstappen hit the tyre wall side on, where he dizzily climbed from the damaged Red Bull after the Grand Prix was suspended, from an initial deployment of the safety car. The Dutchman was taken to hospital for further precautionary checks an FIA spokesperson stated.

Leclerc lead at that moment as he went by Hamilton, who had lost speed after his tangle with Verstappen exiting Copse.

The race was stopped for almost half an hour, which saw at the time Red Bull and Mercedes giving their viewpoints to the race director Michael Masi, as the race stewards investigated the incident.

At the standing start on lap three, Leclerc remained ahead of Hamilton off the line, whilst McLaren’s Lando Norris passed Bottas same style to Leclerc at the first start to run third and in-front of the Mercedes.

Leclerc pulled to a 1.4 second gap at the end of the opening tour and kept Hamilton – who was told to charge after being hit with a ten-second time penalty for his collision with Verstappen – at arm’s length for the next stint of the Grand Prix – where they traded a series of fastest laps in the 1:32’s barrier.

Ferrari told Leclerc it was going to “Plan B” – a one stop strategy with a longer opening stint – as Hamilton struggled to get by due to being stuck in dirty air.

But the reigning world champion to get close and run in DRS range approaching the 20^th tour after Leclerc encountered a string of engine cuts, with the Scuderia telling him to change the power-unit settings.

The problem appeared to be solved (although Leclerc reported the issue on another occasion before he was told to avoid upshifting if the cut happened again) and the Monegasque-youngster was able to increase his lead once more as Hamilton reported blistering on both his front tyres, after charging hard to capitalise on Leclerc’s power issues.

Leclerc’s pace was solid that Ferrari left him out longer until the 29^th lap, two tours after Hamilton stopped to swap his mediums for hards – and one lap later after Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz had lost 10 seconds from a slow pit-stop with his left-front tyre.

But Leclerc had no problem and began his run on the harder rubber with a 7.7 second gap over Bottas, which he rapidly started extending.

Hamilton ran behind Norris after his penalty-served long stop, the McLaren fell behind Bottas due to his own pit-stop delay because of a slow right-rear change that lost the Briton a valuable four seconds.

The Mercedes driver rapidly charged in on Norris and passed the McLaren on the run to the inside of Copse corner on the 31^st tour, at the end of which Leclerc was almost ten seconds in-front of Bottas and 13.5 ahead of Hamilton.

The next ten tours, while Leclerc was managing his pace in the mid 1:31’s in P1, Hamilton caught up to his Mercedes team-mate with a string of quick laps in the mid-high 1:29’s bracket, with the Brackley based-outfit ordering Bottas not to hold the reigning world champion up and let him passed at Stowe on the 40^th lap.

This left Leclerc 7.6 seconds to defend the charging Hamilton with 12 laps remaining, as Ferrari told the former to “full push to the end”, as Hamilton continued to cut the gap down.

The Briton kept taking a second out of the leading Ferrari driver, reaching DRS range with three tours remaining, where Leclerc encountered lapped traffic.

With two laps remaining, Hamilton once again looked on the inside of Copse, with Leclerc trying to hold onto the outside.

But the Monegasque-youngster had to catch a snap of over-steer and the Ferrari went wide over the exit kerbs and went off, rejoining the track just behind Hamilton who clinched the British GP victory and the 99^th of his career by 3.871 seconds.

Bottas wound up 11.125 seconds off his race-winning team-mate in third place, with Norris ahead of McLaren team-mate Daniel Ricciardo, who held Sainz at bay to come home fifth.

Alpine F1 Team’s Fernando Alonso was another driver who endured a slow pit-stop, before which the Spaniard momentarily fought with Bottas when the Silver Arrow emerged out of the pits from it’s sole stop, and the two-time world champion finished seventh after passing Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll following the slow delay.

Stroll was eighth and in-front of the second Alpine of Esteban Ocon, with AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda taking the final points position on offer.

The other AlphaTauri of Pierre Gasly was forced to pit late-on due to a puncture and ended up 11^th, ahead of Williams Racing’s George Russell who came 12^th.

Alfa Romeo Racing pairing Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Raikkonen finished 13^th and 15^th respectively with Williams Racing’s Nicholas Latifi sandwiched in-between the duo.

Red Bull’s Sergio Perez was 16^th and ahead of Haas F1 Team’s Nikita Mazepin and Mick Schumacher who brought up the rear.

Raikkonen and Perez clashed in the later stages of the Grand Prix – with the incident currently investigated by the race stewards.

Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel was the other retiree after the team called him in due to an issue.

2021 British GP – The Top Three

British GP Winner – Lewis Hamilton, #44, Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team, F1 W12 EQ Performance:

“It was such a physically difficult race. I’m so grateful to the fans, this is a dream for me today to do this in front of you all. Amazing effort from the team. I’ve been giving it my all, all week, back in the factory, trying to find performance. I always try to be very measured. Max, he’s very aggressive. Regardless of whether I agree with the penalty, I just kept working.”

2^nd Place – Charles Leclerc, #16, Scuderia Ferrari, SF21:

“It’s difficult – of course it was an incredible race. I gave all of me, but it was not enough in the last few laps. Congratulations to Lewis, he did an incredible job. We didn’t expect it – not to be as competitive. Overall, it was much stronger than we were used to.”

3^rd Place – Valtteri Bottas, #77, Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team, F1 W12 EQ Performance:

“I think both race starts, I was wheel spinning quite a bit which made it a bit more difficult. We stopped a bit too early to be competitive towards the end. As a team yes, really good points so a strong weekend from that point of view.”

Formula 1 Pirelli British Grand Prix 2021 Race Results Classification (52 Laps)

POS	NO	DRIVER	CAR	LAPS	TIME/RETIRED	PTS
1	44	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	52	1:58:23.284	25
2	16	Charles Leclerc	FERRARI	52	+3.871s	18
3	77	Valtteri Bottas	MERCEDES	52	+11.125s	15
4	4	Lando Norris	MCLAREN MERCEDES	52	+28.573s	12
5	3	Daniel Ricciardo	MCLAREN MERCEDES	52	+42.624s	10
6	55	Carlos Sainz	FERRARI	52	+43.454s	8
7	14	Fernando Alonso	ALPINE RENAULT	52	+72.093s	6
8	18	Lance Stroll	ASTON MARTIN MERCEDES	52	+74.289s	4
9	31	Esteban Ocon	ALPINE RENAULT	52	+76.162s	2
10	22	Yuki Tsunoda	ALPHATAURI HONDA	52	+82.065s	1
11	10	Pierre Gasly	ALPHATAURI HONDA	52	+85.327s	0
12	63	George Russell	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	51	+1 lap	0
13	99	Antonio Giovinazzi	ALFA ROMEO RACING FERRARI	51	+1 lap	0
14	6	Nicholas Latifi	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	51	+1 lap	0
15	7	Kimi Räikkönen	ALFA ROMEO RACING FERRARI	51	+1 lap	0
16	11	Sergio Perez	RED BULL RACING HONDA	51	+1 lap	0
17	9	Nikita Mazepin	HAAS FERRARI	51	+1 lap	0
18	47	Mick Schumacher	HAAS FERRARI	51	+1 lap	0
NC	5	Sebastian Vettel	ASTON MARTIN MERCEDES	40	DNF	0
NC	33	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING HONDA	0	DNF	0

https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2021/races/1072/great-britain/race-result.html

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Round eleven of the 2021 FIA Formula One World Championship returns to the Hungaroring in Budapest, Mogyorod, Hungary for the Formula 1 Magyar Nagydij 2021 from July 30-August 01.

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