Sebastian Vettel passed the Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas to win a British Grand Prix full of action as Lewis Hamilton fought up from the back of the field to take second.
Hamilton drove superbly to recover from a first-lap collision with Vettel’s team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, and the result hinged on two late-race safety cars, when world champion Hamilton’s Mercedes team took a strategic gamble.
Hamilton afforded Raikkonen space at the right-handed third turn during the frenetic Silverstone race, but the Finn locked up, before his left-front tyre thudded into the right-rear of Hamilton’s Mercedes. The Englishman was sent into a spin, and he re-joined the track at the back of the pack.
Unlike rivals Ferrari and Red Bull, Mercedes chose not to pit both their drivers for fresh tyres at the first safety car intervention.
