Hamilton WINS British Grand Prix - which went from soporific throughout to nail-biting at the end

Hamilton wins 2020 British Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton wins a British Grand Prix in a race devoid of spectators and excitement, although the closing laps were nail-biting.

It did seem that the lack of an inspiring crowd at the British Grand Prix during qualifying left Lewis Hamilton unable to bring his ‘A’ game to play, although he turned that around in Q3 to take what has become an almost inevitable pole.

That lack of atmosphere also seemed to weigh on the race itself, with Hamilton leading from the start, with Bottas running shotgun, as a rather boring race, despite a couple of safety cars, played out, it seemed inevitable it would be a Mercedes one-two at the finish line.

But the gods had got bored with the soporific spectacle and, two laps from the end, threw a spanner in the works with a puncture for Bottas which took him from second down to 11th.

But more was to come as Hamilton also succumbed to the puncture goblin on the last lap and, with his team counting down the rapidly closing Verstappen, just managed to nurs his Mercedes over the line for the win, closely followed by the Red Bull in second place. And, no doubt, Verstappen ruing the decision to take late tyres to grab the fastest lap. Without that, he’d probably have won.

The two safety cars sessions followed a collision between the Red Bull of Albon and the Haas of Magnusson, and the second a more spectacular own-goal from Kvyat who seemed to make an adjustment on his steering wheel seconds before flying off at Maggots, of all places, in a high-speed mangling of his car. But, so sudden was the off, it looked like a failure rather than an error.

Behind Hamilton and Verstappen, it was a very welcome third for Ferrari’s Leclerc, fourth for Ricciardo’s Renault, fifth for Norris’s McLaren, sixth for Ocon in the seconds Renault, seventh for Gasly in the AlphaTauri, eighth for Albon after recovering from his incident and a penalty, ninth for Stroll in the Racing Point and the last points position for Vettel in the Ferrari, finishing where he started.

And it all happens all over again at Silverstone in a week’s time for the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix.