‘The most dramatic ending I can remember’: Hamilton
London, Monday
There has never really felt much doubt about Lewis Hamilton winning this year’s Formula 1 World Championship and there is even less after a previously uneventful British Grand Prix turned on its head in the final two laps.
Hamilton and his Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas appeared to be cruising to a predictable one-two in the closing laps at Silverstone when all hell suddenly broke loose.
Bottas suffered a puncture with two laps to go, dropping out of the points, and then Hamilton hit the same problem on the final tour, and he faced an agonising final lap trying to drag his car home on three wheels before Max Verstappen’s Red Bull caught him.
Hamilton managed it in what he described as “the most dramatic ending I can remember”.
And, with Bottas finishing 11th, the Briton now holds a 30-point lead after just four races.
There are probably around 12 or so races to go - no-one is quite sure at this stage in this coronavirus-affected season - but even so making up that deficit is a very tall order against a driver of Hamilton’s abilities.
Certainly Verstappen thinks so. Can anyone stop Lewis, he was asked after the race? “No,” he said.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who was third, offered barely any more hope. “No,” Leclerc said. “The guy that has some chances is Valtteri but that’s it.”
What caused all the tyre failures? The events that led to this place came at the end of a race that had been pretty soporific at the front until then. -BBC
