Sebastian Vettel has beaten his championship rival in a thrilling British Grand Prix. It was a close fight between Vettel and his championship rival Lewis Hamilton, who fought back from a collision with Vettel\u2019s teammate Kimi Raikkonen on the opening lap.<\/p>\n
The race turned into a battle between the top four cars, as strategy and safety cars brought Mercedes closer to Ferrari and turned it into a game of strategy between the top too.<\/p>\n
Hamilton was the main loser in the first lap drama, dropping to the back, but managed to recover to second, meaning he is only eight points behind Vettel. The German now leads the championship by eight points ahead of his home race at Hockenheim in two weeks time.<\/p>\n
Valtteri Bottas had been leading with five laps to go, however, the decision not to change tyres under the final safety car proved costly. Bottas was overtaken in the final few laps by Vettel, Hamilton, and Raikkonen, meaning he settled for fourth.<\/p>\n
Sebastian Vettel: “The safety car spiced it up. Valtteri was pushing like crazy, I had the advantage on tyres and it was not easy to find a way through but I think I surprised him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks to the team for supporting me and also the people in the background because yesterday I was a bit damaged but much better today. I was a bit concerned [about my neck] going into the race but I was fine, probably a bit of adrenaline.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hamilton said \u201c. We are in a tough battle this year. It is the most intense battle I think we have all had but I am very grateful the car was still in one piece after the Turn 3 incident.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo get back to second was huge for us and I will take it for us I’m happy with the drive and what the team were able to do. We just have to work harder. [Pause.] That’s all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Red Bull was unable to get in the mix with the Ferrari\u2019s and Mercedes\u2019s but tried during the first safety car. The safety car was caused by Sauber\u2019s Marcus Ericson crashing into the barriers at Abbey, the Swede suffered a huge impact with the barriers.<\/p>\n
Mercedes opted not to pit either Hamilton or Bottas, while Ferrari and Red Bull decided to stop, that could have been an error by the Silver Arrows. However, as the race restarted, Haas\u2019s Romain Grosjean and Renaults Carlos Sainz collided sending them into the barriers.<\/p>\n
The Frenchman has been under pressure this season, it was another error as he went to attack Grosjean on the outside of Copse before a wobble at the apex saw him go into the back of the Spaniard.<\/p>\n
That then created a ten lap sprint between Ferrari and Mercedes, Hamilton and Vettel fought between themselves with the German finally getting the move to stick through Brooklands, before pulling away from Bottas at Luffield.<\/p>\n
Nico Hulkenberg finished best of the rest in sixth, while Force India\u2019s Esteban Ocon finished seventh after spending most of the afternoon locking horns with Fernando Alonso. The McLaren driver had worked his way to eighth, before losing out to Ocon in the closing stages after starting thirteenth.<\/p>\n
Hulkenberg had quietly worked his way through the first lap chaos to gain five places and finish the race behind the top six.<\/p>\n
Toro Rosso\u2019s Pierre Gasly rounded out the top ten, but is under investigation for a collision with Sergio Perez. Charles Leclerc was unable to continue his run of results, the Sauber driver was forced to retire.<\/p>\n
RELATED<\/strong><\/p>\n Sebastian Vettel has beaten his championship rival in a thrilling British Grand Prix. It was a close fight between Vettel and his championship rival Lewis Hamilton, who fought back from a collision with Vettel\u2019s teammate Kimi Raikkonen on the opening lap. The race turned into a battle between the top four cars, as strategy and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[44,314,319,320,369,390,493,625,647,664,707,709,741,742,754,882,885,1111,1115,1130,1227,1283,1298,1422,1440,1544,1604,1613,1707,1770,1771,1791,1803,1808,1829,1843,1919,2105,2149,2152],"class_list":["post-5387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-race-reports","tag-44","tag-brendon-hartley","tag-british-gp","tag-british-grand-prix","tag-carlos-sainz-jr","tag-charles-leclerc","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-england","tag-esteban-ocon","tag-f1","tag-fernando-alonso","tag-ferrari","tag-force-india","tag-force-india-mercedes","tag-formula-one","tag-haas","tag-haas-ferrari","tag-kevin-magnuessen","tag-kimi-raikkonen","tag-lance-stroll","tag-marcus-ericsson","tag-max-verstappen","tag-mercedes","tag-nico-hulkenberg","tag-northamptonshire","tag-pierre-gasly","tag-race","tag-race-reports","tag-romain-grosjean","tag-sauber","tag-sauber-afla-romeo","tag-sebastian-vettel","tag-sergey-sirotkin","tag-sergio-perez","tag-silverstone","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-stoffel-vandoorne","tag-valtteri-bottas","tag-williams","tag-williams-mercedes"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5387\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n