Hamilton ties British GP win record to gain on Vettel

Lewis Hamilton won his fifth British Grand Prix to cut Sebastian Vettel's championship lead to just one point as his title rival suffered a late puncture.

Leading from pole position, Hamilton was rarely troubled as he dominated at his home race to secure his fourth consecutive victory at Silverstone. What was already set to be a major gain for the Briton – with teammate Valtteri Bottas passing Vettel for third place late on – became even better for Hamilton when Ferrari's race ended in dramatic fashion.

First Kimi Raikkonen – running second at the time – suffered a front left puncture that slowed him for the final sector and forced a pit stop with two laps remaining. That promoted Bottas to second place and Vettel to third, but Vettel then suffered the exact same problem on the penultimate lap at the end of the first sector and had to limp around to the pits, losing masses of time.

Championship leader Vettel rejoined in seventh place as the last car on the lead lap, while Hamilton secured victory by 14s from his Mercedes teammate to the delight of the home crowd.

Raikkonen finished third despite his stop, with Max Verstappen fourth after Red Bull opted to make a precautionary pit stop having seen Raikkonen's failure. Fifth was Daniel Ricciardo after a stunning recovery drive from the back of the grid, with Nico Hulkenberg coming home sixth for Renault after being passed by Ricciardo late on.

Behind Vettel, Esteban Ocon secured eighth place ahead of teammate Sergio Perez in ninth and Felipe Massa in 10th.

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Hamilton had delivered a stunning lap to secure pole position and made a great start to open up a clear lead on the opening lap, with Raikkonen holding onto second place as Verstappen jumped Vettel for third. The race was immediately brought under the Safety Car, however, when the two Toro Rosso drivers collided.

Carlos Sainz passed Daniil Kvyat into Copse but his teammate then had a run into Maggots and ran slightly wide through the high-speed section. Rejoining having run over the curb, Kvyat lost the rear of his car and slid into his teammate, with both spinning and Sainz retiring.

Kvyat was penalized for the incident and handed a drive-through penalty for rejoining the track in an unsafe manner, also picking up two penalty points to take his total for the year to nine. Should Kvyat reach 12 penalty points he will receive an automatic one-race ban.

Upon the restart, Hamilton led away and Raikkonen matched the Mercedes for a while before dropping back. The front two had a clear lead though as Verstappen held off Vettel, with a strong fight seeing the pair go wheel-to-wheel on a number of occasions through Stowe, but as Verstappen defended excellently, Vettel lost time and was forced to pit early to jump the Red Bull.

With Vettel pitting at the end of lap 18, Verstappen came in a lap later and lost out to the Ferrari, dropping around 10 seconds back as the race progressed. It was another five laps before Raikkonen came into the pits – with Hamilton following suit a lap later – which enabled Vettel to close to within five seconds of his teammate.

Bottas had started on the soft compound tire – compared to supersofts for the rest of the top 10 – and rose to second during the stops, rejoining in fourth place after making his stop with 19 laps to go. Vettel started to drop away from Raikkonen and Bottas pounced with eight laps to go, passing the championship leader using DRS on the Hangar Straight after a failed attempt a lap before, to loud cheers from the crowd.

Vettel immediately complained about problems with his front tires in a precursor to the problems that would unfold for Ferrari in the final laps, but he had moved back up to third place as a result of Raikkonen's failure before his own with a lap and a half remaining.

Ricciardo's race was a demonstration of excellent race craft, with the Australian dropping to the back of the field after being forced wide by a Haas on the restart after the Safety Car. Undeterred, Ricciardo climbed into the top 10 before making his pit stop and then dispatched Perez, Ocon and Magnussen within a lap and a half to move into seventh.

With Ricciardo closing in, Hulkenberg was informed of a problem by his team and was unable to defend his position, but Vettel's late failure saw the Renault driver finish in sixth place.

While there was joy for one British driver – as Hamilton went crowd surfing after the podium – it was despair for the other as Jolyon Palmer failed to start the race. Palmer complained of a brake-by-wire problem on the opening lap and had to stop before returning to the grid, causing an extra formation lap. The only other driver to retire aside from Sainz was Fernando Alonso, who suffered a drop in fuel pressure and then a loss of power. Alonso's teammate Stoffel Vandoorne had a more competitive race, fighting for points throughout but eventually falling 3.9s shy in 11th place.

The result closes the championship battle up considerably, with Vettel now just one point ahead of Hamilton heading to Hungary. Bottas also closed up in the fight, with the Finn now just 23 points adrift of Vettel in third place.