Lewis Hamilton delighted his home crowd with a 🏅record sixth B൲ritish Grand Prix victory as Silverstone celebrated its newly-secured Formula 1 future with a classic race.

Following on from a brilliant race in Austria, Silverstone delivered another thrilling spectacle for F1 on an 𒈔action-packed day of major sporting events in the൩ United Kingdom, with the British Grand Prix, Cricket World Cup final, Wimbledon men’s singles final and the Netball World Cup all taking place.

Here are some of the ma🍃in talking points from the Br🦂itish Grand Prix…

Supreme Hamilton in control

Hamilton may well have benefited from a fortunately-timed Safety Car period that enabled him to take the lead of Sunday’s race from Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas, butꩵ in reality, it only sped up the inevitable.

When Alfa Romeo’🐽s Antonio Giovinazzi’s spun off into the gravel at the Vale chicane on Lap 20, the Safety Car was deployed, handing Hamilton with what was effectively a free pit stop that meant he would rejoin ahead of his Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas, who had already made his first stop four laps earlier.

Ultimately, a decision prior to the start of the grand prix turned out to🌊 be the key to victory for Hamilton, with Mercedes opting to split strategies between its drivers. Bottas would go Medium-Medium-Soft and stop twice, while Hamilton ran longer into the first stint and switched to Hards, removing the need to stop again.

Polesitter Bottas defended brilliantly to keep the visibly 💧faster Hamilton at bay in the early stages as the p💟air ran wheel-to-wheel in a thrilling tussle on Lap 4, before Hamilton backed off a little to preserve his tyres, safe in the knowledge he would be stopping one less time than the Finn.

Even without a Safeಞty Car period, Hamilton was managing the first stint so well that he would have rejoined only a second or so behind Bottas after both drivers had completed their first stops. With Bottas needing to stop again, Hamilton would have always been in prime position to move into the lead, assuming he would not have eventually found a way past his teammate on-track. 

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff admitted𓃲 after the race that Mercedes will re-evaluate a similar scenario in ♌future, after hindsight proved the team had effectively provided its second-placed driver with a better strategy. 

“I think in hindsight, the argument has valuౠe, and I think we need to look at it,” Wolff said.

“Are we favouring somebo🐓dy unconsciously? Which we wouldn’t want to do. So for sure it created more experience and more data for us to judge whether it is somethi🐬ng we would want to do in the future.”

Nevertheless, Hamilton’s performance en route to a seventh win of the season was underlined by the fact he was able to set the fastest lap of the race - and take the maximum 26 points on offer - on the very last lap, despite being on 32-lap Hard t🌜yres and Bottas having a fresh set of Softs at his disposal. 

That alone will set the alarm bells r🦹inging for Bottas, who has now fallen 39-points adrift in the title race, and knows he has his work cut out to beat Hamilton, even on the occasions he is able to get the upper hand in qualifying.