Dramatic End to Silverstone GP

What a dramatic end to what was Hamilton's 7th Win at the Silverstone Grand Prix. Bottas who was running in 2nd place ended up with his tyre deflating which had dramatic effects to the race and his position in the championship finishing outside of the points in P11. Seeing this happen to Bottas you would have thought the team should have brought Lewis in to protect his position. 

With only a few corners to go, the tyre blew out. Hamilton was incredibly lucky for two reasons. Redbull decided to pit Max for fresh tyre's so he could attempt to get another championship point the fastest lap. Had he not pitted then he would have been able to take Hamilton once his tyre blew out. Secondly the where the tyre blew out on the last few corners meant that he could limp the car over the line to take his 7th Win at Silverstone and probably the most dramatic win he has ever faced. Max finished just 5 seconds behind the Champ.

Vettel has been struggling all weekend and only just managed to finish in 10th place scoring just the single point in the championship. His team mate though benefited from Botta's unfortune and came across the line to take 3rd position.


Vettel said:
"That was a very difficult race, because I couldn’t challenge anyone. Many of those behind me were a bit faster and managed to get past, as I was struggling massively to find grip in this car, even though I tried lots of different things this weekend.
I didn’t have the required pace and so my confidence level is quite low at the moment, because I’m struggling to get a feel for the car and every time I try and push, I lose the car. I think we need to have a look at this problem together with the engineers."

Lewis Hamilton
"I have never experienced anything like that before. That last lap was one of the most challenging laps I have ever had. Up until that point, everything was going relatively smoothly, the tyres felt great and I was doing some management. When I heard Valtteri's tyre had gone, I looked at mine and everything seemed fine, but I started to back off. Then, it just suddenly deflated down the straight. It was a heart-in-your-mouth feeling and then I was just trying to keep the speed up without damaging the car. Bono was giving me the gaps; I think it was 30 seconds at one stage, but it was coming down quite quickly and I was thinking 'How far is it to the end of the lap?'. But we managed to get the car across the line. That last lap is definitely one to remember, I feel so grateful that I got it back and could secure the win. It was difficult standing up there on the podium without the crowd, but hopefully I did everyone proud who was supporting us from home."
 
Valtteri Bottas
"It's a really disappointing result for me. I got very unlucky with the puncture; everything was going OK until that point. I was trying to put the pressure on Lewis, but we knew it was going to be a long stint on the Hard tyre. Towards the end I was starting to get more and more vibrations on the front left. I didn't see any debris or anything, so I reported the vibrations and started to manage the tyres, but then the tyre failed suddenly on the start/finish straight and I had to complete a full lap back to the pits which cost me a lot of time. I am sure there will be lots of learnings to take from this weekend, so we'll take those and move onto the next weekend."


The promoters were concerned that we would see the same race twice when running the back to back race weekends but i think that we all know that we will definitely see something different this coming weekend. The tyre compounds selected are softer for this 70th anniversary race so we should see a two stop strategy come in to play